Gamer Girls 5 (Old) (Patreon)

Game room one was lively with activity when Liz and Fletcher entered. A respectable crowd had gathered around the Rhythm Rhythm Rebellion arcade cabinets, and each of the large TVs hooked up to consoles for splitscreen or cooperative play had at least a few players seated. The constant bass thump of the rhythm games in the background, the excited yells and yelps from players, and an occasional explosion from the Grail 5 LAN party across the room gave the place a noisy, bustling atmosphere.

Something’s not right, though, Fletcher frowned, scanning around the room. There was a key aspect missing from all of this madness, and it took him a few moments to put his finger on exactly what it was. No one’s paying attention to the room.

“Fletcher?” Liz asked, tugging at his arm.

“Nobody’s watching the room,” he said. Not only had no one checked to see if they were wearing badges at the entrance—it seemed like there was no staffer inside generally keeping aware of the situations, and that was a problem.

“I’ll just be one minute,” he promised, feeling irritation rise up inside of him.

“‘Kay,” Liz released his arm but didn’t go on ahead to the dance cabinets without him, instead lingering close by his side as he traversed the room, checking each of the stations.

Doesn’t look like any controllers are missing—yet, Fletcher sighed with relief. Game room security was one of the convention staff’s biggest concerns, as almost all of the hardware was on loan from somewhere or somebody, and had to be very carefully accounted for. The several stand-up arcade cabinets were worth anywhere from five to ten grand as they were fairly new models, and someone had to make sure the gamers weren’t setting drinks on top of them or otherwise abusing the hardware.

They crossed a counterclockwise loop around the entire game room before he finally found the only other guy with a staff badge, sitting at one of the Grail 5 computers.

“Hey, are you in charge of this room?” Fletcher leaned in, waving a hand in front of the screen to get the guy’s attention.

“Uhh,” the guy blinked but didn’t look up from the screen. “I put Mog in charge of the Slash Sisters thing.”

“‘The Slash Sisters thing?’” Fletcher’s voice rose. “You mean the Slash Sisters tournament? It’s over. Is Mog a staffer?”

“No, he’s—uh, you know, Mog. With a zero. Em-zero-gee, the streamer guy.”

“Mog Macrae?” Fletcher gave the Grail player a confused look. “So, you—the staffer assigned to this room for this block, took it upon yourself to have some random attendee watch the room for you?”

“Well—no, I’m watching the room,” the guy protested.

“Do you know how many controllers the room’s missing right now?” Fletcher bluffed.

“Uhhhh—”

“Hey, how long’s this guy been sitting here playing Grail?” Fletcher stood back up, looking around to the other Grail 5 players.

“All damn day,” One of them gleefully spoke up. “He was in here when I started, and that was like, three hours ago. His gamer profile’ll tell you how long he’s been logged in for.”

“Shut the fuck up, Chris,” the Grail player swore. “I wasn’t playing the entire time.”

“Yeah, he was,” another one of the players griped.

“He’s been sitting there camping on every single goddamned map,” a third attendee called over.

“Alright, you’re done,” Fletcher decided. “Give me your badge.”

“Dude,” the Grail player finally looked up from his screen. “Are you serious? I’m a volunteer, s’not like I was getting paid anyways. I told Mog to—”

But, Fletcher had already decisively hit the power button on the PC for this station, and the former staffer’s monitor went dark in an instant. The text BlasterMage501 has disconnected appeared at the top of all of the Grail 5 player’s screens, and a small cheer went up. One of the players even released his mouse and keyboard to clap out applause.

“What the fuck—”

“Get up,” Fletcher demanded, pulling the squawking player’s chair out away from the table. “Give me your badge, and get out.”

The red-faced gamer tossed his staff lanyard across the keyboard and heaved himself up, stalking out of the game room without another word. Sighing to himself, Fletcher grabbed the staff badge with one hand and started booting the PC back up with the other, giving Liz an exasperated look. What is with people these days?

“Sorry,” Liz gave him a knowing grin. “Maybe I should be staff next year?”

“It’s more headache then it’s worth,” he chuckled, pulling his walkie talkie out and switching it back on.

“--you still want one of the security guys to come by your room, Joe?” A warbled voice was already on the air.

“Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction. But, um, everything’s perfectly all right here now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here, thank you. How are you?”

“We’re sending the security guy back over.”

“Uh, uh, negative negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak... very dangerous.”

“Fletcher here, got a situation in game room one,” Fletcher called in, shaking his head in amusement at their antics.

“What’s up?”

“Staffer that was here for this block was sitting playing games the whole time, just threw him out. We have anybody we can pull?”

“...Hold, please.”

“You’re not gonna take over for them, are you?” Liz asked in a quiet voice, putting her hand back on his arm and giving him a pleading look. The puppy-dog eyes along with the cute pout of her soft lips had an alarming effect when directed at him personally, despite him having admired it before in shots on her cosplay page. “I thought we were gonna dance?”

“The next block starts in forty minutes,” the voice came back over his walkie talkie. “Can you cover for us ‘till then?”

“I… can’t,” Fletcher said, looking at Liz. “I’m with someone.”

Then Liz smiled at him, and it was one he’d never seen in any of her photos before.

* * *

Jordyn slipped off her Dmitri Dhampir duster as she stepped up onto the Rhythm Rhythm Rebellion platform, revealing smooth, flawless chocolate-colored shoulders and arms. Contrary to appearances, both the silken shirt and the suit vest she wore beneath the coat were sleeveless, another thoughtful measure she’d taken in designing the costume to ensure she wouldn’t sweat. The red overcoat was folded neatly and dropped onto the floor beside the arcade machine, followed by the matching wide-brimmed red hat, while the cosplay contest trophy she’d won was being held for her by Mary.

“Have you ever played before, Mel?” Jordyn grinned, tapping her boot at one of the arrows on the platform to scroll down through the list of available songs. The triple-R arcade cabinet was enormous, with a marquee of light patterns built into its base, a large LCD screen, and most importantly; its dance platforms. Each player would stand on their own plastic and metal stage with a safety bar rising up behind it, the platform itself lit up with directional arrows pointing away from the center in each direction.

“Nope!” Melanie replied, hopping up onto the opposite platform with a bounce, her top straining with the ???? text. The short-statured girl was still wearing her white short shorts from her cosplay, which were also just tight enough to pinch at the pale flesh of her thighs in a way that had more than a few guys glancing in her direction as she climbed up on the dance pad.

“I’ve played Guitar Star though, so I totally get the, like, the mechanics of it. You stomp the things when the arrows hit the thingy on the screen, right?”

“Pretty much!” Jordyn said, stretching out her legs and wriggling her butt within the dress slacks she wore before settling into a wide stance, left and right feet settling on the left and right arrows respectively. The remaining portion of the costume gave her an air that was equal parts sexy and professional, reminiscent of a club or casino bartender.

“Hah, you shouldn’t have to stomp, though. Usually these things are fairly sensitive, you should be fine just stepping,” Jordyn explained, finally deciding on a song. “Here, we’ll do Brilliant 2B B4U. I’m gonna start you off on easy difficulty.”

“Okay!” Melanie puffed out several quick breaths. “I’m so ready! Go, go! Let’s do this!”

The song began to play, what sounded like a heavily remixed europop song, and arrows began to march up the screen in time with the music. Jordyn started dancing right away, her straightened black hair swaying back and forth as she stepped, establishing a rhythm for herself before the arrows even reached the arrow receptors atop the screen. Melanie froze in place, watching and waiting for her arrows to climb to the top so that she could pounce into motion.

“H-hey, what the shit!” Melanie exclaimed, awkwardly stomping forward on the pad to catch the first of her arrows. “You have like, way, way more thingies than me!” The queue of different arrows floating up on her side of the screen was sparse, a directional arrow hitting the receptor to the beat of the music about every second. In contrast, Jordyn’s side of the game screen was a staggering wall of different direction arrows, often double-arrows requiring her to jump and place both her feet in new positions at the same time.

“You wanna switch?!” Jordyn asked breathlessly, twisting and tapping in a furious frenzy. Her play wasn’t perfect, but she was able to consistently build up consistent combo scores for point multipliers despite the mess of directional arrows.

“Kinda!” Melanie laughed, stumbling as she missed several arrows in a row. “Oh shit. Shit, fuck!”

“You’ve got one foot planted,” Lucas spoke up from where he was watching on the side. “Stand on the side arrows.” In true beginner fashion, she was standing on one leg and trying to hit all the arrows with the other as if the rhythm game was a whack-a-mole.

“That doesn’t count against me?” Melanie asked, resituating herself on the platform and experimentally hitting the directional pad.

“Nope. Only counts against you if you don’t hit the ones it asks for,” Lucas answered.

He wasn’t the only one who’d wandered over to watch the cute girls dance—Foxy stood spectating with Mary at his side, his arm around her and palm resting on the girl’s butt. Geneva and Emily both had their attention on the Rhythm match and accidentally bumped into each other. Both girls stopped in place to silently size each other up in for a moment before each turned back to watch again without any apology.

“She’s really good,” Mary observed, admiring the quick and precise moves Jordyn was displaying for everyone. While it did still seem like a nerd game, the enthusiasm and level of performance the well-dressed girl with the dark skin was showing off impressed even her. It was an easy distinction between Jordyn and the obvious newcomer Melanie who was fumbling through what was clearly a much easier setting.

“You wanna try it out next?” Foxy cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Nope, no,” Mary shook her head with a laugh, hugging Jordyn’s trophy against her chest. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m playing next,” Geneva declared, stepping beside the couple and slapping her hand firmly onto Foxy’s butt. “Wanna have a dance off, bro?”

“Ah, fuck,” Foxy swore in surprise, grabbing her wrist. “GiGi Barbatos. Who the hell let you out of your cage?”

“Chewed through the bars,” Geneva purred, giving his rear end a squeeze before he could strongarm her hand away. “Still hungry. Who’s the jailbait?”

“I’m not jailbait,” Mary scowled. “I’m nineteen.”

“Ooh, that was good,” Geneva’s eyes widened in surprise. “Almost convincing, even. Are you new, or is this a real thing?” She waggled her finger between Foxy and Mary to indicate what she was talking about.

“Cute,” Foxy snorted, protectively pulling Mary a little further way from Geneva.

“Don’t fret, ma petite—Foxy doesn’t mind, do ya Fawkes?” Geneva followed, intent on antagonizing them. “Hey, you haven’t invited me to this year’s party, yet?”

“Wouldn’t waste my breath,” Foxy replied. “I seem to remember you don’t drink?”

“Oh, is that all your little parties have to offer, now?” Geneva looked disappointed in him. “What happened to all the babes, huh?”

/// I was originally writing this up as something sexier, but when I reread it, the whole thing felt like forced fanservice that focused on just two of the characters. Going instead with a progression that (hopefully) feels like it's pulling all the characters in and making them a part of the story rather than just passing cameos.