Pressing Player 2 Start without asking
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Bambi's bag immediately got Sophia's attention, and she was confident that Bambi was very intentionally trying to get her attention, with the way she was fussing the zipper and placing the bag right between them. Mind games or not, Sophia was more than happy to be nosy at a stranger's belongings... or, well, Bambi wasn't much of a stranger to her now.
Sophia peered over as Bambi rummaged through her bag, spying for anything of interest. A mountain of makeup, a change of clothes, ...who needs that many box cutters at once? Odd. Bambi's digging soon unearthed her selection of Battle Chips, which did grab Sophia's attention due to how... bog-standard the collection was. A cut above weak starter pack fodder, sure, but they were all very straightforward attacking chips, and didn't seem picked with any obvious combos or Program Advances in mind. The only thing more exotic was some area denial and keep-away chips, includin- wait, huh?
"...Recov75? Is that even a thing?" Sophia couldn't help exclaim upon spotting that particular chip's label. Didn't recovery chips only exist in increments of ten?
MothMan had a hearty chuckle towards Pointe's idea of giving a phishing prog a fishing hat. It did sound quite cute, honestly. "No, but I wish I did now!" MothMan pulled across the window for a closer look at the hat. "That sort of thing we usually do the manual, old-fashioned way." (Maybe a more automatic solution would have helped avoid the cock up with the chatroom BBS, MothMan mused to himself.)
Achida. Pointe said the surname with a degree of gravitas, but if there was any significance to the name alone it was lost on MothMan. Probably for the best he didn't recognise it; it's been an uphill battle to have MothMan give Pointe any time of day at all, and him registering the name of some notorious rich family had the potential to reignite his lightly-simmering paranoia.
"Tsk, what money isn't dirty?" MothMan replied dismissively. "Not that most rich people will admit that's the case. The world has far too many nepo babies who insist they got where they are though 'hard work' or 'pure talent' instead of being drop-lifted a mountain of Zenny from their family." MothMan mimed out the scare quotes. "Closest thing we have to wealth is living in an oversized McMansion, all because Sophia's family wants to cram everyone under one roof like sardines."
Sophia's confusion over the recovery chip came through crystal-clear over the PET's mic, and MothMan's curiosity was piqued just enough to glance back at the camera window... and thanks to Sophia leaning over, the PET was poking out enough to give him a view! At the risk of Pointe taking notice, MothMan paused the feed and zoomed in to the chips, quickly coming to the same conclusions as Sophia. Very basic selection, no real synergies, lopsided balance towards support and recovery, all seemed to corroborate Pointe's claim that Bambi wasn't a NetBattler...
An extra-loud DING! reverberated from a nearby pinball table the very moment MothMan realised this was the perfect opportunity! He closed the camera window with a devilish grin as he prepared his address to the outside world.
As Bambi began to dig out her pill box, Sophia's PET vibrated followed by MothMan making his presence known. "You know Sophia, maybe we should share some of our own chips and technique!" He chimed in with an overly friendly tone, making sure to be loud enough to not be muffled by the pocket. "After all, what better way to bond than a friendly NetBattle, hmm?"
Sophia thought that was an odd interjection at first... but quickly put the dots together. "Man, do I even have good chips on hand right now?" Sophia ruffled her hands through her pockets, she always had some chips on her person, but... "Ugh, if we didn't get dragged out so fast we could have prepared for this..."
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Bambi gave a little smile at Sophia leaning in to snoop in her bag. She wondered if Sophia was a younger sibling too. Nosiness tended to be a learned behavior. When the other girl found her chips, Bambi gave a shrug. "Yeah? Its just a standard recovery chip. Do you not have those where you're from?" Bambi had a ton of them. They had been a pretty standard chip in every bargain big since the month they had come out.
Bambi stiffened at the idea, hands finding her front-most dark locks and fidgeting. She wasn't a netbattler, because if Ijuuin Enzan was something she couldn't -wouldn't - be that too. Comparison to him had always been the one thing guaranteed to ruin her day and she would never invite that into her life. She wasn't a netbaltler. This was normally something she didn't care to shy away from. She had said it more times than she could count whenever get-togethers at arcades inevitably wound up with the group dividing into pairs around the netbattling machine.
"I'm not really a netbatler." she said, and she hated herself for how meek it sounded, when normally she was so flippant and casual about it. She normally didn't care, but she did here. She was good at so many things, so there was no reason to be shy about this one thing she couldn't do well. She did fine in the bare minimum virus busting class. Pointe handled Agaki's stupid ass bird like a champ, but straight on netbattling...
Her stomach lurched however, while the navis waited and Sophia patted her own pockets down.
God, what was she going to do? If she netbattled here, and this was the impression Sophia was left with....
"I'm not good at netbattling, and if you see it, you won't think I'm reliable or cool." Bambi whispered it fast, like she was ripping off a bandage. It wouldn't get any easier the longer she let is sit in her chest.
Pointe proceeded to chime in. Unseen by the operators, she popped beside Mothman in a puff of glitter, holding a Prog she had managed to get blush and long false eyelashes onto. "It's okay, Étoile! They're our friends now, so they'll still think you're wonderful! Maybe they can teach us!"
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"First I've heard of this particular one." Truth be told, Sophia rarely needed to carry recovery chips as MothMan could just heal via grass terrain (and certainly not ones for such a paltry amount of HP), but she still knew generic chips well enough to know that "Recov75" wasn't a thing. Eh, it's probably just a misprint. Or more likely, Bambi got suckered into buying junk chips repackaged with a fake label. (Sophia still wasn't really giving any consideration to the whole "alternate dimensions" thing.)
Sophia was too busy rummaging inside her jacket to notice Bambi suddenly freeze up, until her meek, seemingly out-of-character interjection snatched Sophia's attention. Good grief, she may as well have been looking at a completely different person. All of Bambi's confidence and extroversion was rapidly draining away, leaving a nervous, fidgety wreck in the place Bambi once sat. Sophia's ogling certainly wasn't helping matters, though it was hard not to pay attention to the abrupt 180º turn in personality.
But this all part of the plan wasn't it? Sure, Sophia was slowly becoming receptive to the idea of being friends with Bambi, but she still wanted put Bambi in place. She was not going to let Bambi walk all over her, be the best at everything, or use her as a social asset. And just the idea of a NetBattle was helping to solve those problems, let alone an actual match...
...Although Sophia would need to actually find any darn BattleChips on her first. Ugh, none stuffed away in her jacket, maybe in her in jeans... hold on, was something in her back pockets the whole time?
Sophia stood up and promptly yanked out a pair of chips from behind her without much grace, both of which lacked proper labels in favour of black permanent marker text. ...HeatSide and BugBomb? Not great, but she could make those work.
"Well look, you're far better equipped for a battle than me today." Sophia fanned her chips over Bambi's stash, comparing the quantity but trying to downplay the quality. "I haven't even done that much NetBattling myself. You'll do fine." A half-truth. Sophia hadn't done much formal NetBattling, but she had no shortage of tussles with UnderNet Navis, net authorities and scam victims trying to defend themselves.
MothMan was briefly taken aback by the unsightly visage of the yassified Mr. Prog Pointe had dramatically appeared alongside, but tried not get hung up on it. He needed to capitalise on Ponite's words if the plan was going to work.
"Yeah, let's not be strangers here! Don't take it too seriously, Sophia isn't the ultra-competitive type. It'll just be some fun, low-stakes practice!"
MothMan was keeping up a friendly facade, but deep down he was revelling in his sudden lucky break. He was going out on a limb that maybe a one-sided NetBattle might be the thing that gets these two to stay the fuck away from Sophia, but to see it was an immediate, huge sore spot for Bambi? Now he was getting somewhere! Spirits are getting broken today, oh yes...
"Eugh..." before Sophia could say anything more to encourage Bambi or question why Pointe's voice was coming from her PET, the throbbing pain on her face suddenly resurfaced. (Why does it ache so much?! The ball didn't hurt that much, for the love of pete...) Sophia lurched back for the ice pack, clutching her forehead with the chips still hand. At least this reminder that she was supposed to be digging out painkillers might snap Bambi out of her current spiral...
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Bambi rolled her lip between her teeth. Mothman wasn't exactly subtle with his intentions. Pointe's encouragement got her moving again. She looked at her chips, and started to piece them out. Her chips weren't especially powerful. She had picked up some basics, and hadn't wanted to get reliant on strong chips before she had the basics down. The only thing she hadn't hesitated on was higher level Recovery chips. The Recovery 75s had come from her attempts at the chip trader, which she had all but given up on after her 14th Recovery 75.
She offered out a handful. She wouldn't part with her 200s or 300s, but she could spare these. "Here. I have tons. You should at least have a couple support chips on you."
Pointe gave a celebratory spin. She practically glowed with pride. Her girl was so brave even when she was doing something she was nervous about.
"I'm so glad! You'll have to teach me a lot, Mothman!" Pointe turned, and clasped the other navi's hands in her own. "This is going to be so good for us! That awful man also has a flying navi, so this will be such good practice for shooting her straight out of the sky!"
Bambi went immediately back to digging. Her little medbox sparkled with a thick layer of rhinestones from the bottom of the bag. Bingo! The pills were individually packaged into doses, and carefully alphabetized, and she pulled out a baggie with a smiley face sticker stuck to the side by another smaller smiley face sticker. She fished out a new bottle of water and offered that out too.
If Sophia thought less of her for her net battling skills, she
could probably get Mel to beat her upcould make up for it with her willingness to learn. -
Never one to reject Free Shit
, Sophia wordlessly tugged the chip offering out of Bambi's hands, giving them a brief inspection. Some proper recovery chips would give her and MothMan more leeway to screw around with their opponent... assuming these chips were even what they said they are.MothMan was, yet again, taken aback a little by Pointe's forthcoming nature as they took his hands, but quickly replaced his expression with a polite smile and nodded. As much as he would love to drop some ominous veiled taunt about "teaching" them something alright, Pointe had proven they were smarter than they looked. Bambi probably was as well. MothMan couldn't be entirely sure if the two were falling for his ruse or not; playing this personality straight for as long as possible seemed to be the correct move.
And besides, it'll sting so much more if Bambi and Pointe build up the impression they ever stood a chance.
As Bambi was fishing out the medbox, Sophia was busy making a complete mess of herself; struggling to coordinate her hands to swap her chips for the ice pack while also keeping a hand rested on the aching area itself. Before she could tangle herself up any further, Bambi's handout fortunately got her to put everything down to grab the bag of pills. Unfortunately, her hand-eye-coordination wasn't the only thing being clouded by the aching. As Bambi turned back to her bag to fetch Sophia water, she took a long hard stare at the pills and the overbearing smiley stickers, and the wrong neurons in her brain activated.
"Are you trying drug m-"
Halfway through blurting that out Sophia realised how stupid of an accusation that was. What the heck was she thinking?! Bambi
was just trying to be a helpful friend to her!didn't need such a convoluted set up if she actually wanted to drug her! Good lord, she was making even more of a fool out of herself now!"Thanks..." Sophia meekly interrupted herself, failing to hide her embarrassment as she took the water bottle from a baffled-looking Bambi. "L-look away for a moment."
Sophia turned herself directly away from Bambi's sight, making certain she couldn't she her face before lowering her face mask, swallowing a couple of painkillers and chugging down the water bottle in one big gulp, all done in swift, well-practised motions. And while Sophia would have been perfectly fine with doing a dry swallow, it had been a while since she drank anything. Even the lukewarm bottled water was making her feel refreshed and better already, signalled by a large exhale as she finished her drink and threw her mask back on, followed by uncaringly dropping the bottle to the floor.
"...Let's get a move on." Sophia commanded, not asked, as she stood up fully and began to walk in the general direction of a yet-unexplored section of the arcade. Better she take charge before Bambi had the chance to hesitate again, and before they get any more weird looks from the pinball players...
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Pointe gave a flourish with her hands as she spun, and logged back over to her own PET (and if a couple adjacent progs she had been secretly eyeing turned a new color, he would have to see them once her glitter cloud disappeared).
She had never been inside of a arcade netbattle machine. She had never had any interest in it. It was always a thing that people used that she didn't need to, so why waste processing power on it? But now... now it was something new for her and Bambi to experience together. This was exciting!
Bambi gave a stiffled giggle at Sophia's unfinished drug accusation. Sophia was cute, getting worked up, calming herself down, like every other girl their age. It made her feel normal in a way she hadn't in quite some time. She was a teenager making friends at the arcade, and the world felt a little less scary. It turned down the sting of admitting her own shortcomings in front of someone new.
"They're factory sealed, silly! The stickers are just a bonus so you get a treat when you need it most!" She swipes an extra sticker and puts it on her cheek, pointing at the holographic cartoon face then her own to show off their matching smiles- big, glittery, bright. It pulled a bit as the apple of her cheek rounded with the grin.
When Sophia told her to look away, Bambi stood and turned with her back to the other girl. She hooked her fingers into the belt loops at her hips so her jacket could fan out like a barrier between Sophia and the rest of the arcade. When the pinball players looked, Bambi made uncomfortably direct eye contact til they took a hint and went back to their game. She didn't appreciate people encroaching on her title of being the nosiest person in the room.
Bambi turned back when the bottle was dropped, and frowned in disapproval. "Shame on you!" she said, scooping up the empty bottle. She didn't bother with the trash, walking past Sophia in long strides to the recyclable bin past the netbattle machines. "Gimme back that sticker. Litterers don't get smiley faces."
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Sophia couldn't return Bambi's big smile. Not just because the aching or her embarrassment hadn't worn off, but because it felt so artificially saccharine. Feel-good stickers were something you gave to children.
(Wasn't there also a game in this arcade where you got chased by a killer smiley face upon taking too long? For some reason that seemed to stick out in Sophia's mind)
Of course Bambi would raise a stink about the bottle. As if the kids here weren't knocking about trash or ticket clippings everywhere. "Fine, you can have it back." Sophia was clearly feeling better, as her response dripped with sardonicism while she dropped the stickers right above the exact same spot she dropped the bottle. Nothing to smile about in my life, she jeered to herself.
While Bambi was preoccupied with bin duty, Sophia kept moving and took her place at one of the netbattle machines. Oddly, she seemed to be the only person stationed at the netbattle machines; the rest remained in a fruitless attract mode, despite being set to free play. Not that Sophia thought much of said observation as she jacked MothMan into the machine.
If Bambi was expecting any kind of fancy jack-in catch-phrase or pose, Sophia's mundane point 'n' press was sure to disappoint.
After the jack-in process completed, MothMan found himself in what appeared to be a spectator's area: a large, rectangular border overlooking and surrounding the actual netbattling arena. Judging by the sets of benches outlining the edge of the platform and the skybox of stick-figure audience members, the comp seemed to be a very abstract and downscaled representation of a stadium.
MothMan didn't spend much time taking in his surroundings, and instead flew towards the conspicuous control panel straight ahead. Even with Bambi cleaning up after Sophia, he was expecting Pointe to catch up with him quickly (and almost certainly in a surprise burst of confetti); he didn't want to waste any time he had to configure the match settings in his favour before Pointe showed up, just in case they raised an objection while he was going through the options.
(Perhaps MothMan was trying to be a bit too fast though, as he had to dig in his heels while landing to narrowly avoid smacking his whole body into the panel.)
First order of business: picking an arena well-suited to his abilities. MothMan hastily flicked his finger across the row of stage thumbnails in search anything ideal for hi- aha! MothMan stopped scrolling with a decisive finger press. As the thumbnail lit up, each individual tile making up the arena began to flip over one-by-one, clicking back into place with different tiles on the underside and gradually revealing MothMan's choice of stage: A large square of grass with a thick border of regular panels, with rocks laid out in a 5-point dice shape. Perfect for both his abilities and getting a good HeatCross shot in!
The sound of another Navi jacking in filled the air just as MothMan gave the arena a satisfied look.
