[ We find Claire sitting on the sofa in front of the television in the basement of the boathouse. There's a super nintendo hooked up to it, which is TOTALLY BADASS since it has slightly less pixelated graphics than previous gaming platforms, as well as featuring more than two dozen colors. ] ( *_* ) (*_*) [ Meanwhile, we find Eric entering the same basement looking for something to do. Session start! ] * Eric walks down the stairs, apparently. "What's up?" * Claire plays! What's she playing? Uh.... (Dang. What's that old? c.c) ( Uhm... Zelda 3, a link to the past! ) ( Ah. I got one. ) * Claire plays Pocky and Rocky! As Rocky of course. Cute little 'coon! She glances back when Eric enters. "Hey. Pull up a seat, why don't you?" Eh? Okay. What's this about? * Eric pulls up a seat. And yes, he does pronounce about as aboot. * Claire grins. "Wanna try? It's two-player." * Eric shrugs and smiles. "Sure. How do you play, anyways?" * Claire taps the reset button. As the game boots up, she explains the controls to Eric. "It's not hard. Push Y for your main attack, B for your close up attack, and X to dash. A is the same as Y, except not autofire. Oh, and the top buttons destroy all the enemies on screen, but you can only do that so often. * Eric blinks. "Like Turtles?" ^_^_v * Eric grabs a controller. "Let's go then!" * Claire pushes the start button! The character select screen comes up. "Do you wanna be the Shinto girl or the raccoon?" * Eric picks the 'coon! So, what now? * Claire gets the Shinto girl. "Guess that answers that question." The game starts! The first stage is outside a shrine, with a number of enemies including ghosts, floating fireballs and skeletons. Claire starts moving the Shintoist forwards, holding down the attack button. "Shoot everything in sight." * Eric starts shooting! "Okay. What's worth more points?" * Eric eyes that he doesn't have to taptaptap the button and just goes with autofire. "This isn't too bad." * Claire throws wards at some fireballs. "The skeletons are worth the most points, but the fireballs sometimes give powerups." As if to punctuate that statement, a fireball drops a blue power up. The Shintoist runs over it and starts throwing two cards in different directions. "This one's the spreader. There's also a fire powerup." ( I can't believe I remember this game :P ) (I have *no* clue what this game is. ^_^;) ( It's Pocky & Rocky! I can send it if you want. :P ) (I need to get an emulator too. <.<) ( That'd help. ) * Eric shootshootshoots his way thru! "Okay. Fireballs and Skeletons. Got it." * Claire walks around shooting supernaturals. "So tell me, what are we supposed to do here?" * Eric shoots supernaturals too. "Eh? Oh, learn most of the time. We also do investigation stuff, and we've also blown stuff up too. It's part of 'training to use our powers for the better of mankind'." Well, it's more like *I've* blown stuff up. Most of the other students just kick bad guys. * Claire snickers. "Blowing up stuff for the better of mankind, huh?" * Eric chuckles. "Yeah. Didn't you ever hear that's good for the environment?" * Claire smacks a ghost with her character's warding stick (the 'coon uses his tail). "Couldn't hurt." Probably. So I'm with you guys with the investigations and the stuff-blowing-up things, eh? * Eric shrugs and shoots some more! (go 'coon!) He grabs a fire powerup and starts shooting whatever it is the 'coon shoots after that. "Pretty much. One of the first things they're gonna do is help you train in using your powers, though. One trip in the Danger Room oughta do that." If they get around to fixing it. If they don't, *I* will. It's a really cool place, though. It'll get your adrenaline rushing in no-time. * Claire grabs another spreader powerup, and the shintoist starts throwing giant cards. "What IS that place, anyhow? You said something about fighting holograms, but..." It sounds like.... That 3D thing Nintendo's supposed to be working on. It's what it sounds like. They're solid holograms, and react exactly like you think they would. Yup, only better and in color. * Claire boggles. "'Solid' holograms?" Yeah. You should feel one of them throw a punch. Ow... * Claire starts blasting hopping umbrellas and kappa when they get to the bridge. "I thought holograms weren't solid. Or anything, other than an image." * Eric keeps shooting away. "Not normally. They have some pretty high-tech here, and I want to look at it." Do they... um, it sounds like they can hurt you. Oh, they most certainly can. I think they have a safety switch so they don't kill you, though. Pardon me for saying the obvious, but this Danger room sounds pretty dangerous. You've been pardoned. Thanks. And that's what it is. The coolest arcade game you could ever wish for. * Claire blinks. "... I didn't think of it like that. Wow." The she grins. "Wow! I hope they fix it soon!" How long until you try to fix it? Can I watch? I was going to fix it earlier, but you guys stopped me. And I don't know what kind of security they have set up to keep people from tampering with it. Eh, I see no problem with letting you watch me fix it, though. I bet Hank'd be impressed if I fixed it on my own. ^_^ * Claire picks up a powerup. "Hmm... I don't know about that but... Sure! I'll watch." * Eric finds a powerup too! Multifireballs, baby! "So, yeah. It's really cool. You ever get interested in mechanics or anything?" Well, not mechanics, but... Eh? ( But it's a giant video game. :P ) (... Do you have ED Video Games?) ( Maybe ^^ ) (Great. That'll fit nice and neat next to my ED: Food.) (^_^) * Claire shoots the boss when he shows up! (A big oval-headed guy who throws rocks and rolls around). "Well, anyway... Are you doing any investigations right now, or is it just class time? * Eric shoots the boss and runs away from rocks and the big oval-head. "Both. We're under-cover as foreign exchange students at a High School, trying to find a paricular mutant with the power to crunch a line of lockers into the size of... I think it was a soft ball." * Claire hits the rocks with the warding stick. "Cool. I can do that." * Eric chuckles, and says in French. "" He dodges a rock and throws more fireballs! Big guy? What big guy? You mean Daegal? * Claire tries to dodge one of the rocks, but mistimes it and gets hit. She grimaces. "I mean the guy who can crush lockers into softballs.. Although Daegal's pretty big too." Oh, that guy? We have no idea who he is. 's our job to find him before another group does. * Eric runs away from the rocks. * Claire defeats the boss! The next level is in a bamboo forest (I think. I can't remember ^^;). "Another group?" * Eric doesn * Eric doesn't defeat the boss, 'cuz Claire does! "Yeah, some extremist elitest group. One of the reasons we need to know how to fight." * Claire nods. "Makes sense. I wasn't expecting anything like this when I came here, though." She smirks. "Not that I mind." Neither was I, really. * Eric gets hit by a mook. "Um, what were you expecting, then?" * Claire shrugs. "Figured it'd be like a typical school, except without so much racial hatred." She levitates a Cheeto from a nearby bowl to her mouth and chomps down at it. * Claire swallows. "Maybe they'd teach me to use my power better, too. So I could get some drinks down here without spilling them all over." ( I've got the most useful power ever for a gamer. :P ) * Eric spies the cheeto. He grabs the bowl and downs it all in a matter of bites, and with phenominal speed. "That'd be nice. I figured it'd be another school too, really. Just with a few extra 'classes'. They *did* say they could help me with my powers in the letter they sent me." Apparently they really wanted Eileen too, but she figured she'd be better off somewhere else. * Claire stares at Eric until the sound of her character getting hit recaptures her attention. She moves frantically to get out of the way and blast the thing. "They did? The one I got was... Well, if you red it right, you could tell it implied that it was a school for mutants, but it didn't explicitly say that." * Eric chuckles. "Yeah, my sister analyzed it a bit. They said that, if in legal speak and a roundabout way." He doesn't turn his attention from the screen. * Claire shoots a few mooks. "Sounds like you're pretty close to her. It's a completely different level than my sister and me." * Eric grins as he blasts some more. "Yeah. I never did realize how much I missed our arguing until we left home." Still, I bet she's gonna live out her dream as well. She always did want to become an artist. Or at least a writer. * Claire nods. She gets hit again and winds up losing a life. "Grr..." She blasts the mook into oblivion. "That's good. It's nice to have goals." * Eric gets pummeled as he lets his guard down. "Yeah, I guess it i- Oh boy." He regains control of his guy, who's life is at one pixel. * Claire chuckles. "Gotta pay attention." She shoots a few more enemies. "So, what's your sister like? You're twins, right?" She's a lot like me. Only definetly not. * Claire blinks. "What's that mean?" She follows through with a hiss as her character gets fireballed. Eh, yeah. We're twins, and I guess we act and look a lot alike, but we have completly different interests. * Claire nods. * Claire kills a few more mooks, and re-power-ups her character, going with fire this time. "So you're the mechanic and she's the artist, huh?" * Eric 's char dies and he starts his next life. "Yeah, pretty much. Funny, eh?" * Claire nods, "Yeah." but her face is unreadable. At least until she misses an enemy twice and then gets killed by it. "Rrgh!" * Eric rapid-fires his way thru the mooks... and quickly gets swarmed and killed. "Curses Bulwinkle! I died again!" It happens. This is fun, though. I don't know why I didn't get into these sooner. * Eric starts up again. * Claire nods. "Yeah. Both my sister and I have been playing video games as long as I can remember." She shoots more mooks. "Actually, I've been meaning to get you to elaborate on your life a bit more since that car ride." * Eric shoots more mooks and shrugs. "Not much to elaborate on, really. I'm born, she's born, we go to school... I think she's won some awards with her artwork. I know she can make money with it, though. She auctioned off some of it before. As for me, I've um... Well, let's just say the VCR was never the same after I got to it." What'd you do to it? Made the VCR clock work. Oh, and I added another tape-deck. Too bad it made the thing too big to fit in its nice little cubby-hole. * Claire blasts a few more enemies. "Oh. And here I thought you turned it into a sattelite jamming mechanism or something. I'm disappointed." * Eric blasts some more. "Nah. That was the microwave." * Claire snickers. "Show those Russians the power of the defroster, huh?" * Eric chuckles. "Woulda if my parents didn't stop me." Aw. That's a shame. Yeah. So, did you do anything silly when you were younger? Like try turning the toaster into a death ray? Don't I wish. There's nothing special about me, though. Unless you count the powers or the weird-colored hair. Well, that's a start. How did your powers come up, eh? I dunno. It was ages ago. I've had them for over ten years. Wow. I've only had mine for a few months. Does your sister do anything? Or are you more special than she thinks? ~_^ * Claire sighs. "She has powers too. And she's better with them than me." Eh... I know you got somethin' she doesn't. No matter how similar they are, nobody's the same. And nobody is *ever* 'better'. * Claire chuckles. "She can't smash cars as well as me." * Eric snickers. "Just need to find you some cars to smash then. I'm sure you'll beat her at that." I don't think screwing up is a vaild area for beating someone in. Nah, just need to apply it productively. You'd have no clue how often my parents thought my improvements were bad for their warrenties... They were right, but they didn't have to worry either. Ehh... And at any rate, we can teach you to do stuff she can't. Like hockey. Hockey? I dunno... I have no idea how to skate. Well, first things first, right? * Eric gets killed again. "Darnit!" * Claire gets killed again too. ". Yeah, I guess..." Or ya wanna beat her at her own game? That's easier said than done. Eh, I know. 's why I was suggesting something else. It doesn't matter if I want to beat her at her own game or not, because I can't. You compare yourself to her too much... We're too much alike not to. You need to be different, then. I've tried. * Eric dodges some blasts and shoots back, grabbing a couple power-ups on the way. "And?" * Claire kills a few mooks, and gets hit. She curses in French. "And it doesn't work. Either what I do is unimportant, or she can do it better than I can. Eh... Well there's one thing that you got that she doesn't. * Claire snickers. "What's that? Height?" I got short hair, too. So you don't *look* identical? Oh, right... Most people don't. ^_^; Eh, well... Unless she's met up with another bunch just like us, she doesn't got someone to cover her back. * Claire frowns. "She doesn't need anyone to." Oh, believe me. She will if the group that came after us goes after her. * Claire whacks a monkey with her warding stick. "And we're not identical, but that's worse. She's prettier than me, and younger, and..." I don't know. She can take care of herself pretty well. Better than I can, for sure. So can I. But when the ones your fighting are also mutants, it's a whole nother level. It might not matter for her. I bet it will. Everyone has a weakness... Hers just hasn't come up yet. * Claire chuckles. "Maybe her weakness is me." Is she nice to you? Yeah. Well, at least she's not a bitch. * Eric goes on a killing spree with the racoon's tail. She's too nice. I can't compete. But she's not stupid, either. I bet you're overlooking something. Still, and I know I've said this before, I don't think you should always compare yourself to her. The instant you stop doing that, the instant you'll realize how cool of a person you really are. That's easy to say; you haven't met her. You'd like her more than me if you did; everyone always does. * Claire gets killed again and curses. She hits the continue button. ( And this level is taking a long time 'cause I forget what the boss is :P ) * Eric shrugs. "I don't know. I might. Or maybe I'll just remember that there's always you too, as she seems to be a very busy person and wouldn't have time to play a good game of Turtles or Street Fighter with me. Hey, I don't want to get my butt kicked *all* the time." He grins. * Eric keeps playing. He continued earlier, but forgot to mention it. I bet she would. She loves video games. Yeah. But at least I have a chance against you... I don't like people who are 'perfect'. They drive me nuts. * Claire snickers. "Me too. Duh." But that would mean that the only thing I'm better than her at is not being perfect. eh, yeah. I suppose it can be taken that way. Or it can be taken that you're a lot easier for the rest of us mortals to relate to. Yeah, but that's because I'm here and she's in France. * Eric laughs. "You're saying you don't have any mortals in France." 'Course not. We're French. We've got red wine and the Eiffel Tower! ... Do you call French Fries just Fries or French Toast simply Toast? * Claire grins, her eyes twinkling. "" (They just call them "Un-American-Fries" and "Un-American-Toast". ^.~) Eh, don't wanna ruin any sense of 'national pride' you have. ^_^; * Claire snickers. (Nah, the call it Non-Freedom fries and Non-freedom toast, just to piss Americans off.) * Eric keeps playing. How far into the game *are* we? ( By now? Maybe stage 5? :P ) (Sure. ^_^) So, any of the recent anti-mutant shit they're throwing around get to you? Not really. I haven't exactly broadcasted my abilities to the world at large, though. The hair and eyes stand out, but I just say it's dye and contact lenses. Eh, that works. At least your powers don't make your hands glow. So? You get a free light. A free light that glows radio-active green when you're thinkin about something else? I see your point. So you blow things up and eat a lot, huh? * Eric snickers. "Eh, at least I don't light up like a christmas tree or somethin'." Yeah. I also can do somethin' that's really cool, too. The only thing you do is Telekinesis? * Claire grimaces as her character gets killed again. "What's that?" Yeah, pretty much. * Eric pauses the game. "Umm... name an object I could hold in my hand." * Claire blinks. "Hm? Uhh... A Kirby plushie!" (<.<) ( What? Kirby exists by now ^^ ) * Eric shrugs and concentrates. A few seconds later, a Kirby Plushie appears in his hand. Even with a sword. * Claire blinks. She pokes the plushie. * Eric keeps his concentration on the plushie. The plushie feels just like a normal plushie. Pretty cool, eh? * Claire grins widely at the plushie. "Wow!" She turns her gaze up at Eric, still grinning. "That's really great! Hey, can you make a copy of Castlevania IV?" * Eric looses concentration, and the plushie vanishes. "Castle-what?" * Claire loses her grin. "Aw... It's gone!" Eh? It's kinda limited. Makin' stuff takes a lot more effort than blowing it up. It doesn't stick around for long, does it? Only as long as I concentrate. I think it works the same way as my other stuff... Only it doesn't make me as hungry. * Claire looks disappointed. "That's too bad. We could've had fun with that." Eh, I bet we can. I just need to get better, is all. * Claire grins. "Well, I bet there's still a thing or two we can do with it." * Eric grins back. "Eh? Like what?" Oh, I don't know. I'm sure something will come to me before long. Eh, for one thing, I'm never missing school supplies. Can you create food? Yeah. You don't want to eat it, though. Why? What happens? It, kinda... blows up. Oh. Eww. Yeah. Good thing I ate it, though... Don't want to think what it'd do to someone who isn't resistant to it. Tasted perfect, though. ^_^ Was it worth it? Won't do it again. Sounds like you've got a lot of power. I just move stuff with my brain. Ya don't know how powerful that is. If I could do that, I wouldn't need to fly a plane to get anywhere. Well... If you go to high, you can get dizzy from the lack of oxygen. Go too fast and you get bugs in your face. * Eric snickers. "At least you can." And couldn't you move the bugs out of the way, or move the air with you? * Claire grins. "Yeah, but I was trying to be nice." * Eric smiles and leans back. "I still think your power's really cool." Thanks. What does Daegal do? Besides get kicked in the head. When he gets beat up really bad, he starts glowing, and gets a whole lot tougher. Oh, and heals a lot faster too. Hm. That... sounds like it sucks, actually. Well, let's just say I'm glad I don't have his power. * Claire nods. "Likewise." Seems to serve him well, though. He really likes to beat things up with his hands. I've noticed. Seems a little headstrong. * Eric chuckles. "At least he's not a moron." You go to a public high school before? * Claire chuckles. "Well, that's good." Hm? Yeah, but it wasn't anything special. Oh... Well... It wasn't public, though. Eh? 's just as well. When I said moron, I ment the punks that act like they own the school. You have no clue how many students think I'm 15 or so. Can't say I've ever experienced that. * Eric shrugs. "So... keep on playing?" ^_^ Sure! * Eric picks up his controller and unpauses, making the mayhem ensue again! * Claire plays further! [ And so they played video games late into the night, and suffered for it in class the next day! End session! ]