Level Upping || Seamus & Alana
@protective-detective
This wasn’t fair. Alana visited Quarter all the time, feeding the vintage machines until any trace of anxiety dissolved like the pixilated enemies she’d destroy. A considerable amount of her paycheck was spent there, more than she’d like to admit. Sometimes Alana would stay so late that she had to resort to wearing her glasses to keep her eyes from watering. And, out of all that work, the majority was put into one machine- Joust. It was her pride and joy.
And yet, someone else had made it to the top of the scoreboard. Her spot. This was unacceptable. Turning on her heel, Alana ran up to the counter for an explanation. She’d been coming here so often that the owners were able to recognize her. Hopefully they knew she was honest, too. “Tammy! Tammy, Joust is glitching.”
“...What’s the glitch?” The woman behind the counter only turned her head, peering at Alana out of the corner of her eye. Her skepticism was well earned. Alana also claimed the game was glitching when she was killed by the pterodactyl not a week ago.
What was the most mature way to phrase the problem? Mulling it over for a moment or two, Alana chose her words carefully before speaking. “It’s... Well, um, okay I’ve had the high score for over two months, right?”
“Right.”
“And I maintain it. Like, I always come in and try harder, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So, um, maybe there was a power outage or something? Something that might’ve caused a glitch, because now I don’t have the high score. I mean, it must’ve been switched someone else around by accident- my handle’s not at the top anymore.” She finished with her eyes staring down at her dimly-lit feet. Yeah. Alana knew what the answer would be before Tammy had to say anything.
The woman sighed, not unkindly, but as someone who routinely dealt with these kind of reports much more than she’d like to. “Look, if your score’s that important to you, just keep playing. You got there once, you’ll get there again,” after a moment’s pause Tammy shrugged and added, “Nothing I can do for you, kid.”
Alana knew Tammy hadn’t meant to be cruel, but those words just about broke her heart. Eyes hard, she briskly walked back to her game, hoping beyond all hope that things had straightened out in the brief time she’d been away. Deep down, Alana knew she was blowing this out of proportion. This was just a video game, a decades-old game about flying neon ostriches. Barely anyone cared about Joust anymore. Hell, barely anyone knew it existed. And above all else, it was supposed to ease stress, not cause it. But damn it, Alana cared. She cared so much that her teeth threatened to crumble in her mouth as she ground them. It was one of the few things she knew, beyond a doubt, that she was good at.
She was ATY, The Joust Queen. That title had been earned. How much time had this new person put into their high score before they usurped her? How much frustration, how much sweat and strain and cramped muscles had they poured into Joust to earn their position at the top of the scoreboard?
Questions rattled in her skull, pulling and prodding at her mind as she stared at the three letters that dethroned her. Was it dumb luck? Pure talent? But, above all else, Alana just wanted to know who.
But before she could fish a quarter out of her neatly crocheted coin purse and claim the next round, she found that a man was already using her game. She took a deep breath and let it out though clenched teeth. That was fine. It wasn’t like sadistic universal forces had screwed her over enough for one day. She stood behind him as he finished up the game, pixelated buzzards swarming the screen in a frightening mass. And, as his score only rose, Alana felt her skin prickle with anger.
It reached a boiling point when he entered his handle. “SDM.”
Three letters were ruining her life. Instead of exploding in the middle of the arcade, Alana simply grabbed a coin from her purse and slammed it down on the screen’s ledge. When she spoke her voice was clipped, and barbed with venom.
“I’ve got next game.”