Infinity Legends

Chapter 44: Pizza Time!

The five people in Luca’s and Barry’s dorm room ripped their VR helmets off simultaneously. After leaving Damien Swipe to settle on the virtual bunk beneath Gahagan Vitrius onboard of the Infinity, the group had decided to call that a day and log-off. Barry had resisted at first, claiming the Wildcard deadline was just around the corner and that he would feel better completing the team and practicing more rather than wasting time in the real world, but as usual Luca had convinced him otherwise.

After all, there was little they could do right then and there. There was only one slot left on the team, and it was reserved to a melee specialist, which had been promised for Ybor to select.

The one other order of business was to put the newest recruits—Ybor, the engineer, Gahagan, the sniper, and Damien, the gunslinger—to face the Choker. Still, Luca had insisted that doing so in Dana’s presence would make the whole team feel uneasy for all the right reasons. As much as Barry trusted her, she was an opponent, and nobody else had any reason to share Barry’s confidence in her honesty.

Therefore, Barry had been convinced, somehow, that the best use of their time was as themselves in the real world.

“I’m starving!” Gummybear said, jumping from Luca’s bed, where she had been nested to play.

“You can say that again,” Dana raised from Barry’s bed. “Who’da’thunk getting shot in the knees would get you this hungry?”

“We could go to that taco place nearby,” Barry suggested, still sitting on his blue pouf.

“Can’t we order in?” Sarah asked. The dorm was the only safe place in campus for her to be with Luca and Barry. If they were going out to eat, she’d have to go back to the sorority. Not something she was particularly looking forward to.

“Or we can go to a pizza place in town,” Luca smirked.

“Still a bit risky for me,” Sarah said.

“Oh, trust me, it isn’t,” Luca stood up and grabbed a jacket. “We won’t run into anyone there. Not anyone we should worry about, at least…”

“What do mean?” Sarah asked, standing up as well.

“You’ll see, Ms. Hobson. You’ll see!”

***

“Welcome to Fantasy Pizza Stars!” a man in a full Solar League costume greeted the five visitors as they entered a universe of neon lights, fluorescent tables, noisy arcade consoles and colorful milkshakes in glasses a tad too tall. Plus swirly straws, of course.

“Great, huh?” Luca asked beaming.

Barry, Dana and Sarah simply stared dumbfounded at the kingdom of pizza, sweet drinks and games.

Gummybear vibrated in excitement.

“You’re right that we won’t run into anyone from campus here,” Sarah said as she took in the waiters in alien costumes and the planetarium hanging overhead.

“Tell you what, Ms. Frost,” Luca pointed at Sarah then turned to a point-and-shoot arcade machine. “You think yourself a good shot? I challenge you to a round of Maze Showdown!”

“Oh, you’re on Scaleback!” Sarah laughed and the two ran to the game machine.

Gummybear was hot on their trail. “Hey, I wanna play too!”

“So…” Barry scratched the back of his neck, half expecting to find a cyborg implant there. “You fancy a game or…?”

“I’d rather just sit and get a pizza,” Dana shrugged. “Not really my scene, y’know? I’ll be caught dead before I play…” she paused as she started reading the names of the arcades around them, “… Flight of the Ruckorr, Trouble in Spruce, Spacebound’s Tower, Hammer of… Woah, whaaaat the f**k?”

Dana reeled back until she collided against Barry’s shoulders.

“What?” he asked following her gaze to a hyper-technological version of whack-a-mole.

“They named a f*****g arcade game after me!” Dana started towards the machine. “Hammer of Arlak? Motherfuckers gotta be kidding me!”

“Yeah! Everybody knows you use a battle axe!” Barry said behind her with a clever smirk.

“Ha, nice one, smartass,” Dana turned to him with a wink, but quickly returned her attention to the game. “Damn, I still can’t believe. How did I never know about this?”

“You’re dying to play, aren’t you?” Barry asked.

“What? Pffft! No!”

“Sure?” Barry fished a quarter from his pocket and waved it in front of Dana’s face.

Her mouth turned to a fine line, her eyes following the coin in the air as she began to sweat under the temptation. In a second, Dana had snatched the money from Barry’s hand with a huff and shoved it into the machine.

“Come on, then, motherfuckers!” Dana yelled, yanking the cushioned hammer from the hook. After a moment, a plushy version of the three eyed Turtle-Mole popped out of a hole.

Barry held back a laugh. Six years ago, in one of the closest matches of Barry’s career with the Star Rangers, Arlak had been completely owned by a swarm of those low-level tunnel diggers, and it had been on Dana’s mind for months to follow. Even now, as the small animatronic put his head out, Barry could see the hatred burning behind her eyes.

“DIE, motherfucker, DIE!” Dana swung the hammer square on the thing’s head. Immediately another two popped out. “f*****g rats! I’ll motherfucking murder you, motherfuckers! Aaaaaahhhh! Rot in pieces you little sons of a bitches! Die, die, die, die, die!”

Eventually, after countless deadly strikes, the vermin simply stopped coming and the machine spilled a long strip of prize tickets.

“That’s right, you little p*****s!” Dana yelled down one of the molehills. “Run before I slay your furry asses!”

“Uh, ma’am,” a server dressed as Supreme Commander Shay poked Dana’s shoulder, a file of wide-eyed children frozen behind him. “This is a family friendly establishment… I’ll ask you to please…”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Supreme Pushover Shay,” Dana waved the man away. “Come back when you get your butt out of that dark-matter well. Oof! That was FUN!”

“It was,” Barry nodded. “But I think you could’ve been more… Arlak.”

“You gonna teach me how to be me now?” Dana raised an eyebrow.

Barry inserted another quarter into the machine, grabbed the hammer with one hand and clenched the other. “Watch and learn, dear. Watch and learn!”

***

 Luca had done great in his run of Maze Showdown. Just a few more hits and he would have made it to the machine’s top scores!

Sarah, however, had done even better. Not only had she made it to the top 10, she made it to top 7 with a whooping 94,000 points!

She was on full gloat mode when Luca pointed over her shoulder at the screen, where Gummybear gunned down wave after wave of mining drones and space pirates. Gummybear had already beaten Sarah’s score and there was still thirty second to go! How?!

When Gummybear pulled the toy trigger for the last time, killing Pirate Captain Brisk Haverson, the machine beeped and shined announcing the new highest score!

A whole ocean of tickets was running down the machine while she used the gun to type GURM into the scoreboard, immortalizing her accomplishment.

“Why aren’t you our gunslinger?” Sarah asked.

“Shooting things gets boring,” Gummybear shrugged. “Much rather help my friends with spells! I can get creative.”

When she was done writing her name, Gummybear ripped the ticket strip out and carried the bundle of hundreds of arcade credits to Luca.

“Here,” the kid said, handing over the truckload of leaflets. “Buy a nice gift for your girlfriend!”

“What? Who?” Luca blabbered as he took the tickets. “Sarah’s? She’s not… I mean, we’re not… I mean… No, just no!”

“Nope, absolutely not!” Sarah shook her head.

“Sure, sure,” Gummybear giggled while the two young adults blushed. “You keep telling yourselves that. Now I’ll go get that pizza. I’m starved!”

***

“I can’t believe you beat me in my own game!” Dana punched Barry’s arm a bit too strongly to be friendly.

“The secret is thinking like Arlak,” Barry said carrying the tickets they had earned. “Why would Arlak use a hammer when he can use a hammer and his fist? Hit twice as many vermin.”

“f*****g Turtle-Moles!” Dana cursed under her breath, looking around for the Supreme Commander of pizza. “Now how about we grab a bite? Think we can use our pro-player status to get the VIP treatment?”

“I don’t think we’re quite there yet…” Barry smiled.

“Why not? When I found you this morning at that café you had you own damned fan club!”

“Four nerds in a café don’t make a fan club!” Barry retorted.

“Hey! That’s your fans you’re talking about,” Dana punched him again. “By the way, one of those four nerds was kind of a cute chick. How come you didn’t make a move?”

“I didn’t feel like it…” Barry shrugged. “Besides, I have my sights on someone else. You might’ve noticed. Maybe.”

“Yeah… Yeah yeah yeah,” Dana nodded and smirked. “Sarah.”

“No!” Barry laughed. Was she playing with him? Testing him? Teasing him? Maybe it was a subtle sign of rejection, a signal that even as he tried to make it clear it was so absurd to think of Barry and Dana together that she’d rather say anyone else first! Or Barry was just overthinking. Again.

“Why not?” Dana asked. “Sarah’s pretty hot! I’d do her!”

Barry stopped walking. That thought had been way more than he had asked for.

“She has a boyfriend,” Barry said, shaking away the mental vision Dana had summoned. “He is an asshole, but still.”

“I bet… Wait,” Dana grabbed Barry’s head and yanked it so she could see his bruised face. “Is he the motherfucker who hit you?”

“Him and his two thugs,” Barry added once Dana let him go.

“Three on one?” she corked an eyebrow. “Even more badass than I’d figured. Come on,” Dana started pacing for the exit and cracked her knuckles.

“Where are we going?” Barry asked, running after his tattooed friend.

“To even the odds,” Dana growled. “Motherfucker broke the street-fighting code. It’s either mano-y-mano, or it’s war!”

“Whoa, wait!” Barry ran and jumped on Dana’s path. “So now we’ll do three-on-two?”

“With me on your corner we’re worth at least five, sweetheart.”

“That’s beside the point!” Barry said. “We need to let this be. It’ll only make things worse for Sarah and I. Besides, Luca doesn’t know, and I’d rather keep it that way.”

Dana squinted, gazing into Barry’s soul. She fumed, muscles tense and ready for a fight, but ultimately her shoulders dropped, and she shook her head.

“Y’know, I’m proud of you, kid. Disappointed I won’t c***k any skulls tonight, but also proud.”

“We already cracked plenty of skulls,” Barry turned to the Hammer of Arlak machine, where one of the plush moles laid on the table with a broken neck. “Now it’s pizza time!”