5.15 – Arcade I


    Losing Helena was fortunately easier than Zoey had feared. Bursting into the busy streets of Treyhull, Zoey and Delta quickly disappeared into the crowds. Helena apparently wasn’t willing to leverage any skills or abilities to pursue them, or to start a fight between wayfarers in the middle of the city, and Zoey and Delta had a head-start—and also the advantage of being the ones to flee rather than chase.


    Even Zoey had some difficulty keeping up with Delta, though the foxgirl made sure not to lose her. Several streetster, and a good five minutes of winding down random busy pathways, Delta came to a stop, eyes scanning her surroundings. Breathing heavily—and only half from the exertion of sprinting away—Zoey did the same.


    Delta took off her mask, which prompted Zoey to do the same.


    “Well, that was interesting,” the foxgirl said.


    “What <em>happened</em>?”


    “Got out, somehow.” Delta shrugged. “Should’ve put more effort into the bindings. Or maybe the gag. Not sure. If I had to guess, someone heard her.”


    “Then how’d you get your body back?”


    “Swapped over, then snatched the mirror back from Jacquelyn. Would’ve been trickier if she didn’te straight to me. They’re not great nners, these cultists.”


    “I think that’s hypocriticaling from us,” Zoey said. “Considering our own disaster of a mission.”


    “We’re all equally bad at it,” Delta amended. “Anyway, we’re home free, pretty sure. Lost Helena.” She wrinkled her nose. “Probably have to watch out for anyone poking around for us, though. Treyhull’s a huge ce, and the local guild too, but there’s not <em>too </em>many people fitting our descriptions.”


    An orange-haired foxgirl? Friends with a six-foot woman with short ck hair? No, even considering Treyhull’s size, tracking down two wayfarers with that information wouldn’t be exceptionally difficult, though they at least kept somewhat to themselves, so maybe not insanely fast, either. She and Delta had felt okay invading the cult because they wouldn’t be in Treyhull more than a week, but it had certainly opened up a vector of danger.


    “We’ll keep an eye out,” Zoey said.


    “You at least learn anything?”


    “Not what we wanted, but some important stuff other than that, yeah.”


    “Oh?”


    “You heard the start of it. She’s been to a lewd shards.”


    “Confirmed?”


    “Without a doubt. Specifically the one with the reflection.”


    “So it means when you enter a shard, the change is permanent.”


    “I guess it is.”


    “That’s insane. Can you imagine the implications?”


    “Not in the slightest,” Zoey said honestly. “I guess I’m spawning a whole new genre of shards. What the hell does that mean?”


    “Not sure, but I expect it’ll be popr with some people,” Delta said amusedly. “Gods, I can’t wait to hear what people have to say about it. Wonder if anyone back at the guild has been to one.”


    “Dunno if you should just go asking around.”


    “Yeah, yeah. I won’t. Just curious.” Delta paused, then smirked. “But long term, assuming we hang out near Mantle for a while? It’ll be more than just two shards corrupted by you. You’ll have a whole fleet of them as the months tick by. No chance it stays a secret.”


    Zoey considered that, then shook her head. “It’ll be interesting, for sure.” She wasn’t sure how else to describe how she felt about the revtion.


    “But nothing about our vampire friend?”


    “Not even a hint. I don’t think Helena knows much.”


    “Guess it was a stretch, anyway. A <em>goddess </em>had to clue you in, so why would Helena know much?”


    “At least it wasn’t a total waste.”


    “And a fun adventure,” Delta agreed. “Any day we cause property damage is a good day.”


    Zoey gave her an unimpressed look, which Delta seemed pleased by, her orange tail swishing happily.


    “Anyway,” Delta said. “Our date. It’s time for that, then.”


    “Now? Not even gonna regroup?”


    “Regroup? Why? We got away. We’re fine. Time to be on with our day.”


    Zoey was still a bit flustered from the whole debacle, but she guessed Delta had a point. Still, she was impressed how quickly Delta could brush it all off. That could have gone much worse. And to be honest, Zoey wasn’t sure they’d seen thest of Helena. Helena had been exceedingly interested in Zoey and how she’d been to the lewd shard. There might be a blonde third-advancement wayfarer poking around the guild looking for the two of them in the near future.


    Zoey wasn’t sure that would bepletely a bad thing. She’d have liked to finish their conversation. She just hoped Helena didn’t show up with any major grudges over how she and Delta had recklessly <em>arranged</em> the meeting.


    She’d keep her eyes and ears open, but there wasn’t much she could do either way about it. She did, for the third or fourth time, wonder why they’d been so reckless. Sure, they’d arranged a meeting with Helena much faster than normal, but there were many things they could’ve done to be safer. And even have stayed in the Church’s good graces. Zoey couldn’t help but feel Delta had been actively looking for trouble—or maybe more urately, excitement—and Zoey’d let herself be dragged along by the whirlwind in fox-girl form.


    “Okay,” Zoey said. “So, our date. Where we headed?”


    “I’m thinking an arcade.”


    That caught Zoey somewhat off guard. “Arcade?” They had those? “Also, I thought we were getting into, what was it, ‘legal trouble’?” How would that happen at an <em>arcade</em>?


    “You know, noiseints, public indecency, murder.”


    “<em>Murder</em>?”


    “That’s what this is gonna be,” Delta said, nodding to herself. “Me versus you, higher points win—it’ll be a murder. A gory one.”


    Ah, that was what she meant. Then the first part of the statement hit her. “Wait, public indecency? You can’t be serious.”


    Delta smirked but didn’t reply. Zoey shook her head in amusement. She gave it fifty-fifty on whether Delta was teasing her or whether something of that sort would actually be happening. Their first date had included Delta jerking her off on one of the long-spanning bridges that went between Treyhull’s gigantic trees, so it was more than possible. Still, a public arcade would be a whole different situation. The bridge had been empty with great sight lines to spot anyone approaching. That wouldn’t remotely be true at a venue like an arcade.


    But back to the first thing that had surprised her—“I didn’t know you even had arcades,” Zoey said. “What’s in there?”


    Delta tilted her head, her brow furrowing. “Arcade stuff. Minigames. Balls, darts, so on.”


    “Ah,” Zoey said. The lower-tech equivalent of what it would have been back home. Plus, if she had to guess, some magic worked in. “Sounds fun.”


    “We’ll have to head downtown to find one, though,” Delta said. “Didn’t scout any in advance. Maybe we’ll see something else we want to do, too. Let’s just take a look around.” Delta looped an arm around Zoey’s and leaned her head into her arm, starting them forward down the path. “Doesn’t matter too much. I just wanna have you to myself for an evening.”


    ***


    Delta had been in Treyhull for longer than Zoey, so she knew her way around the spanning bridges linking the trees that made up the city. They found their way to the popted ‘downtown’mercial district in short order, walking leisurely along arm-in-arm, the chaos of the previous event quickly fading. Checking with a map, they found an arcade without difficulty, and not twenty minutester they walked inside.


    While the arcade wasn’t the same as ones Zoey would find back home, the simrities were surprisinglymon—and the ambiance nearly identical. Zoey scanned the assorted games with interest as Delta bought tokens. She recognized the goal of most of them, but some were less clear. There were only so many possible variants of arcade-style games, but an alien world had at least a few that Zoey couldn’t identify right away.


    “You’re about to get totally destroyed,” Delta announced. “Just a reminder. Try your hardest, and you might take a single point off me. Though, big maybe.”


    “Aren’t you, like, cheating? You’re literally superpowered.” Zoey was curious how that worked. How did the casual introduction of supernaturally empowered people affect ces like arcades? Because surely Delta was twenty or thirty times morepetent at skill-based games like dart-throwing than the average person.


    “Cheating?” Delta asked. “Yeah, kinda. But we can’t redeem prizes, so it doesn’t matter. Just ying for fun.”


    “Sounds like you’re ying to win, to me,” Zoey said dryly.


    “Wrong,” Delta said. “I’m ying to embarrass you with how badly I destroy you, not just ‘to win’.”


    “You’re in apetitive spirit, I see.”


    “Yeah. And also, shit talking is just kinda fun,” she said with a satisfied swish of her tail. “Tell me if I’m being annoying, though.”


    “No, it’s fine. It’s cute.”


    Delta perked up at that, though it seemed like she tried not to let it show. Zoey got the impression she’d actually been worried about Zoey taking it the wrong way. She didn’t—and wouldn’t. While Zoey could getpetitive in her own right, she knew she wouldn’t mind ‘getting destroyed’ if it was Delta.


    “Alright,” Delta said. “What first?”


    “You lead.”


    “Don’t wanna pick the first game? Get an advantage?”


    “I’ve got the feeling I’m losing either way.”


    “Yeah, probably. Maybe I’ll take pity and let you win one, though.”


    “How nice of you.


    “I’m a generous person, I know.” She smirked. “And, maybe the bigger reason I’ll go easy on you is I’m hoping to get lucky. Can’t beat you too bad and risk that.” yful violet eyes sparkled. “Then again, maybe getting beat over and over will get you nice and frustrated, and you’ll want to take it out on me. That could be fun too.”


    The first game Delta took them to was nearly identical to amon one back home—miniature basketball. A hoop sat fifteen feet away, with a slope down to return the thrown balls; there were other versions with shorter gaps to the hoop, but Delta had chosen the hardest of the variant.


    Zoey went first. She’d never been <em>athletic</em>, per se, but probably more so than the typical girl. The thing was, she didn’t just do okay over the following minute, but rather, she astounded herself with how well she performed. Miniature ball after ball flew into the hoop, less than one in six missing, even after Zoey started picking up serious speed, sending them in a stream—having to let them roll back down, limited by how many she had rather than her sheer aiming and shooting.


    She’d known she’d grown stronger, faster, and more agile with her passive boosts that came with her advancements—and especially her new skill, which shared stats among all party members—but this was an impressive enough disy to amaze her even knowing that. Not by what she was aplishing, since her adventures down in the shard had been more impressive and fantastic in the literal sense, but rather the casualness of how well she performed. In a normal setting like an arcade, her newfound powers were oddly more fascinating to her than anything before.


    A simple stop-watch device announced when her time was up. This world didn’t have electricity and technology figured out, but they’d closed many of the gaps through magic—the conveniences found in Treyhull didn’t extend just to plumbing and such.


    Zoey turned to Delta, flushed with excitement. The disy of coordination and speed was far more exhrating than she’d been expecting. She could see why Delta had wanted toe—skill games had be twice as much fun, and they’d been enjoyable enough even as a regr human.


    “Nah, don’t do that,” Deltaughed. “Look so happy about that score, I’ll actually feel bad about destroying you.” She chewed her lip, then firmly shook her head. “No, I won’t let a pretty face sway me. I’ve gotta put you in your ce.”


    “By all means,” Zoey said, lips quirking. “I wanna see what <em>you </em>can do too, if <em>I</em><em>’m</em> this good now.”


    “You call that good?”


    Zoey pouted, and Delta reluctantly admitted, “Fine, it was pretty impressive. For a support mage, at least.”


    “Alright, Miss Rogue,” Zoey said with a roll of her eyes. “Let’s see how the dexterity ss does it.”


    Delta stepped up eagerly to the edge of the arcade game, then got to work.


    All the bragging and teasing, Zoey discovered, was absolutely not unfounded. If Zoey had been impressed at herself, she was doubly so by Delta. Not only was Delta’s ss more geared towards feats of precision and skill like this, but Zoey knew this woman was also just a prodigy in her own right—hence why Rosalie had approved of her. Not a single ball missed the basket, despite flying by in a blur.


    When she’d finished, she turned a smirk Zoey’s way. Zoey only had one honest response: “I already knew it, but you really are incredible.”


    To Zoey’s amusement and nearly incredulity, Delta blushed and looked away. “I mean, yeah, whatever. Not really. But thanks.” With some effort, the foxgirl stered back on her teasing bravado. After seeing her blush so easily, it was twice as endearing as before. “You’re just impressed because of how bad <em>you </em>did. I mean, sheesh. What was the score difference? Two hundred to one?”


    “Somewhere around there,” Zoey said.