Title: Volcadera Rock
Status: On-Going
Characters: Naser, Olivia, Mark
Rating: SFW
Classification: One Shot
Author: nRool
Man, I love it here, that smell of the sea, that salty ting on your tongue, a bustling beach and a grand promenade stretching all the way up the street, yup, no better place than Laysdown.
I take a long deep breath in, hold it for a few and exhale in an exaggerated manner, I adore it here, and yet I haven't been back in what feels like forever, even if in reality it was only about 5 or so years.
Didn't have my license back then, and family trips stopped being a thing once Fang started getting really hostile with Dad, wow that's a miserable thought ... I wonder how their day is going? ... maybe I should've invited her along? ... Ugh, maybe not, she'd just bring Trish and she'd ruin the day for us like she always does ... C'mon Naser, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, you're about the spend the day with the most amazing girl in the world, for once in your life, just say it.
"Fuck em'"
Again, say it like she does.
"Fuck the lot of em'"
Good, this is your day, no stress, no worries, no Fang, no Trish, no Dad breathing down your neck, just a good honest day out with your girlfriend, hit he beach, go for a swim-.
"NASER!!"
And there it is, that voice that puts me at ease, that ever so slight creak of wheels turning, I push myself up from the wall I've been leaning on and turn around to see that wonderous smile, behind her is the goliath who somehow makes my dad look short, her Dad, pushing her along.
"Yo Nas' sorry we're late, traffic was a bitch"
"That so?" I raise an eyebrow in her Dad's direction, he cracks a toothy smrik back at me.
"Was fuckin' pandemonium mate, some old biddy has only gone and T-Boned some poor bastard on the highway" My eyes widen at the thought of a Highway collision as Olivia's Dad gestures his arms into the letter T.
"Geez how did they manage to hit somebody like that on a highway?" Olivia can barely keep a straight face by this point, and I realise I've been japed for the first time of many for today.
"Sorry mate, just yankin' yer chain" they're as bad as each other I swear.
"Bastard" They chuckle at my expense and I let out a loose laugh of my own, after the moment has passed the absolute giant of a man checks his watch.
"Aight, I'll pick ya both up at ... is 6 alright?"
"Sure thing Pops, see you then" I could've swore he was supposed to be staying with us
"You aren't sticking around?"
"Nah mate, got to see a mate about a guitar"
"Oh, you're buying a guitar?"
"Nah, mate says he's got an original PS10, apparently" He rolls his eyes, as if the sarcasm in his voice wasn't enough.
"So, he wants me to have a look at it for 'im" Olivia cuts him off
"Uh Pops, it's like 10:45, didn't you say you had to be at his place by 11:25?"
"... Oh bollocks, right, look i'll come pick you up at 6pm alright, meet me HERE" he points to where he's standing.
"OK Pops, have fun"
"No funny business Naser" he points the only two fingers her has at me.
"No funny business Mark, promise"
We begin to wave him goodbye and he rushes off back up the promenade, he stops and turns back to us.
"Don't forget me' Rock!" Olivia rolls her eyes as I ask myself why he'd want a rock, was there a joke I'm missing?
"I won't!" she calls back, and with a thumbs up, the giant of a man scurries back to the parking lot.
Olivia swerves on the spot to face me and I finally take a good look at what she's wearing, a solid black tank top, and a pair of shorts, God, she rocks anything so-
"You gonna stare at my tits all day or are gonna get going?" I snap myself back at her remark and awkwardly look away
"I wasn't staring at your, you know, was just wondering if you'd brought a swimsuit" he smiles and busts out a few silly poses.
"OH, so you wanna see my *frumpy bod* in some skimpy two-piece huh?" she laughs and I let out a half hearted exhale, she turns and waves a hand forward in the direction of a building I was honestly surprised to still see open.
"Let's hit the muthafuckin' ARCADE" she wheels herself forward and I follow alongside her.
"So you uh, don't wanna gp to the beach?"
"Later, Tymeranno Crisis 2 first"
"Tyranno Crisis .. 2?" she stops abruptly I turn back to see a scowling, but almost quizzical look of disgust on her face.
"You said you've been coming here since you were a kid?"
"I-I have ...?"
"And you've NEVER played Tymeranno Crisis 2?" I rattle my brain to think if I had or not, but nothing came to mind.
"N-Nooo?"
"Well fuck" She continued forward and looked at me
"Today's your lucky Day Nas, you get to play THE. GREATEST. Arcade game of all time for the first time ever" She's giving me a look, but I can't quite tell what it is, excitement maybe?
"Is it really that good?"
"Oh dude don't get me started, it's one of my favourite games ever" I let out a small noise of approval as we reach the openning of the arcade, a crazed disco of whirring lights, ecclectic noises and 90's pop songs echo throughout the place, if this place was open at night I swear I'd probably have a seizure.
"Let's go get some credits" she's pretty much shouting at me, the fruit machines are ear piercingly noisy, we make our way past them and the volume drops considerably, reaching the center of the arcade, the credit booth seems to be empty, I lean over and spy somebody leaning down, looks like they are working on something on the floor.
"Excuse me, sorry to bother you-" a sharp thud from below tells me the guy just hit his head, he lets out a few curses and rubs the back of his head, nestling an eerily familar looking orange crest, and less than familiar large eyes and rather big nose, with the rest being pale brown scales and a green tee with a single flower on it.
"Ah, sorry about that, what can I help you fine folks with?" he gestures a single finger gun in our direction, Olivia pipes up with an answer to the rather odd looking attendant.
"Uh, 20 ... no ... 30 credits please" the attendant's rather googly looking eyes give Olivia a wink as he reaches for a bag and begins counting the plastic tokens one by one.
"27, 28, 29, 30 and 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 extra, just for you sweetheart, that'll be 30 Dollary-dos please" As she goes for her wallet I've already got mine primed and ready.
"No no, I got this" I pass him three tens.
"Aww, what a Gentleman" he passes the small plastic bag full of even more plastic to me, I pass it to Olivia's grabbing hands as she sets it on her lap.
"Thanks dude, you're a legend" a smile and a thumbs up, what a sight.
"Have a nice day Olivia" he waves us both off ... wait, he knows her? she replies with a wave of her own
"You too dude" As we shuffle around the rather awkwardly placed booth I lean in and whisper into Olivia's ear.
"Do you know that guy?"
"Yeah, he works here, has done for like, 6 years?" I look back and see he's vanished, probably back on the floor doing whatever the hell he was doing.
"Not trying to be mean, but he's ..."
"Kinda funny looking?" I swallow my thoughts from spilling out further and nod in agreement.
"He might be kinda goofy lookin' but he's a total sweetheart, always gives me and my Dad extra tokens.
"Hmm, well that's cool"
"Ya know he kinda looks like you" I stop dead in my tracks, I aborb the insult just laid into me before continuing on.
"... No he doesn't" I mean, besides the vaguely similar crest, he doesn't look anything like me.
"Yeah he does, but I'd say you're goofier looking out of the two" another cackle at my expense, if I wasn't so used to her awful sense of humor I might've taken offense, but now, I find it almost part of her charm, her horrible horrible charm.
We walk towards the back, a part labelled with a bright red "12 years and over!" sign, the part I was never allowed to visit as a kid, or even a teenager for that matter, what could be so bad about it I wonder?
"There she is, Tymeranno Crisis 2" Olivia practically throws herself onto the dashboard of the game, is she hugging it?
"Looks pretty old" the machine itself looks like it's seen plenty of use, the stickers are frayed at the edges and the plastic is covered in scuffs, as for the game the graphics are pretty blocky, but it looks very high octane, there's all kind of shooting and looks like ducking and covering?
"Don't judge it by the graphics dude, here" She passes me an oversized bright pink pistol with a cable attached to the bottom, well if being friends with Olivia had taught me anything, it'd be to never judge a game by how old it was, and she'd never steered me wrong before now.
"So uh, you just shoot whats on the screen?"
"Right, you shoot whats on screen, but to reload you have to take cover"
"How do I take cover?" it's then that she points just under the machine, what looks like a large pedal I assumed was just for decor catches my eye.
"You take your foot OFF the pedal to take cover, you step on it to get out and start shooting"
"Wait, how do you play if you have to use-" Before I can even finish my sentence she's already laughing, I pause, eagerly awaiting whatever sarcastic remark she has in store for me.
"I just lift my leg up when I wanna take cover, duh" hmm, not as sarcastic as I expected.
"Hey, if it works"
"Oh yeah, it works, I can do this game 1cc"
"1cc, what's that mean?"
"1 Credit Clear, arcade slang for when you're THAT good at a game"
"Oooo- look at you, with her fancy gamer slang"
"Pfft, I can think of worse gamer words if you want a few"
"No thank you, your vocabulary is colourful enough Olivia"
"Damn fucking right it is"
Just then, I felt her hand grab mine, her hands are pretty big, and with only three fingers, it's a distinct feeling that's oh so unique to her, I look down and our eyes lock, yet ... what's with that strange look she's giving me?
"Dude, take the credits"
Oh, that's what that strange feeling inbetween our hands was, now I feel incredibly stupid.
"Right, uh thanks"
"If you need more just ask, you'll probably die a few times, but I'll try cover you"
"It's just pointing and shooting, how hard could it be?"
"You'll see"
What followed may have been the zaniest 30 minutes of my life, tanks, super soldiers swinging missles on freight trains, a satellite with lazer cannons, I have no idea what I was looking at for most of it, but when all was said and done, we made it through, Olivia couldn't stop smiling the whole way through, even when I kept dying she'd just slip annother credit in and told me to keep going.
"Wow, that was ... something" I take a deep breath out, feels like I've been holding my breath the entire time we've been playing, I slot the oversized pistol back into the machine, Olivia still brandishing hers with a grin.
"No no, don't put it down yet, you gotta put your name in"
I quickly snatch it up again and take aim at the letters, Olivia hastily snipes an L, an I and a V, and I decide to go with "NAS".
"Let's see how well we did then" a list of names and scores begins scrolling up the screen, and to neither of our surprise, a good chunk of the names listed are LIV/MRK.
"Gee, I wonder who set all those high scores, couldn't have possibly been you could it Olivia?" I drop the gun into it's holster and look over to her, she's already pointing two thumbs up to herself with the most smug grin I've ever seen.
"What can I say, I'm just that good, and hey, we made it to #19, even when I'm carrying dead weight I'm a fucking GOD"
"Ouch, dead weight, is that really how you want to reffer to your boyfriend?"
"Oh my, I was reffering to my legs" she picks up one of her legs and jiggles it playfully at me, I can't help but laugh, and then feel bad that I'm laughing at such a morbid joke.
"So uh, why exactly is this game back here?"
"You didn't notice?" I shake my head
"All the terrorists were humans"
"Were they?"
"And the two Cops were dinos"
"So what, people thought it was racist or something?"
"Game came out right on top of some school shooting"
"Fuck, I know the one, some deranged Ankylosaur shot up an All-Human school right?"
"Yeah, games were an easy target back then, so games like this got banned, then later classified as adults only, regardless of how violent they actually were" I move out the passageway as Olivia pushed herself out, we passed the Credit booth again, this time the goofy doppelganger was on his phone talking to somebody, he glanced over to us and gave us a wave as he saw us leaving, Olivia heartily waved back and I raised my hand just enough to acknowledge him.
Olivia raised an arm as the bright sun smacked her sqaure in the face
"God, it is really bright out all of a sudden"
"Mmm, can't beat days like these" I raise my arms and stretch out, I look down to her and ask
"So, where to next, the beach, more arcades, they got some games set up over on the field"
"Fuck it, let's head to the beach, I could do with some rays for my pasty ass skin"
"You aren't pasty, I think you are a lovely verdant shade" We start making our way back across the promenade towards the beach as Olivia snorts at my statement.
"Verdant, is that what you'd call me?"
"Well what would you call your colour?"
"Green, ya doof"
"Verdant IS Green Olivia"
"Man, you don't hear me calling you "a moderate Chrysler Golden Tan" or some dumb shit, yer brown, or grey, honestly not sure sometimes, depeds on the light"