[Open Log] LET THE GAMES BEGIN

[thenightsky]

Who: Noctis, Ash, Ignis and anyone that wants to experience the shenanigans
Where: Goldenrod City Arcade (Game Corner)
When: September 6th, 2017
Summary: The boys (and Ignis) decide to spend their last day in Goldenrod at the Arcade...:'D
Rating: PG-13 because it's them


Located in Goldenrod City, the game center is a place to go and test your skill at various games to try for various prizes--like certain Pokemon!

Try your hand at the slot machines or test your skill at various other games all throughout the center.

Remember, no cheating!



[This is a general catch all for the trio's last day in Goldenrod City~ Feel free to tag in with a top level comment if your character is hanging around! This is ultimately going to end with them fleeing Goldenrod because of a game breaking in the center. (THANKS IGNIS).]

Comments

[seeingeyesteward]

Ignis, to say the least, was not a fan of arcades. He wasn't as into these types of games as Noctis and Prompto were but someone needed to escort them to where they were going. It seemed that this young man that had joined them wasn't exactly the most shining influence that Noctis needed.

Not that Ignis had any say as to who Noct could hang out with. He was an adult, he could make his own decisions and Ignis would let him make his own decisions.

And he and Ash had spoken briefly on the Network before. He hoped he didn't come off awkward around the other man. He wasn't trying to. Ignis simply realized that he was.. older than the two people he was traveling with.

It probably was because Prompto had been so quiet during his last weeks with them that he hadn't really overly noticed the age difference. Now he was noticing. It was difficult not to. As they stood in an Arcade.

"Go on." He motioned for Oleander to go ahead. He didn't really feel much interest in playing games. Dahlia had already wandered off to check out some of the games, Pimpkaboo on a leash. She was the designated pumpkin babysitter today.

[thenightsky]

Noctis had been very out of it since Prompto's disappearance. Ash being around had definitely helped but anyone that knew the prince would be able to see how much it had gotten to him. So of course he'd jump at the idea to do something that could help him get his mind off things! If it could..hopefully it could.

This was his second time visiting the Game Center, his first time having been when he scored himself Andromeda as a prize, so he really wasn't looking to get anything prize wise. If anything he just wanted to play some games and have fun.

His Pokemon, on the other hand, wanted to win. Because someone hadn't put a lot of thought into who he had with him since his mind had been so lost in other thoughts.

Kitty, Crowe and Amicitia had left the Prince's side as soon as they were given permission, the Larvitar a little hesitant but she knew her trainer would be okay with Puff and Carbuncle around. So the trio had set out to see what they could get themselves into and that had led them to Ignis.

Poor Ignis.

Crowe ran right past Oleander and straight into one of the game consoles--ski ball machine--just as the Espurr was given permission to go play, the little dinosaur stumbling backwards with a rumbling giggle.

"Did it work?"

"No--hit it again!" Kitty urged, pumping a small fist into the air as Amicitia bounced up and down on his stuffed little legs.

"We gotta get the tickets!"

[seeingeyesteward]

Oleander managed to take one step before the Tyrunt rant past to crash into the skeeball machine. He clutches a paw to his little chest in shock at the sound the console made. Just a crash bang.

Ignis startles as well, taking a step back from the noise and reaching for a weapon out of instinct that wasn't there. He relaxes a moment later, teeth gritting. This wasn't.. exactly..

"Oleander, perhaps you should try your hand at explaining to them how the game works...?"

Oleander did not look encouraged in the least, even if Ignis was trying to help him become more confident. He approaches the raging three, swallowing.

"H.. Hey! That's not how you get.. tickets... Um... " Help..?

(( feel free to ignore if this is intrusive :x

[rambling_runner]

Did you want help? TOO BAD, AN TINTREACH IS HERE.

The Pikachu had realised that Ash was meeting up with Noctis which meant that finally, finally, she could meet her pupils face to face. She had absolutely demanded to come and had been looking for them while Ash was distracted, trying to win coins for a prize. Upon seeing their assault on the ski ball machine, she beamed and sneaked behind it.

"SO THE DAY HAS COME. The four greatest talents in wrestling finally meet, a clash of force unrivalled by none! Catastrophe! Cruncher! Bear Press! Show your respect! AN TINTREACH IS HERE!" She announced, leaping on top of the machine as she said her name. She struck a pose, flexing her muscles and letting some sparks fly from her cheeks. HELLO FRIENDS! And...an Espurr. She noticed him and beamed, pointing to Oleander. "Aha! Is this a new challenger??"

Oh hell no we are totally rolling with this!

[thenightsky]

Poor Ignis.

Poor, poor Ignis.

Kitty had just been rounding on Oleander with a completely unimpressed look and paws on her hips when a voice interrupted. Her eyes went wide and, behind her, Crowe and Amicitia both let out cheers.

"An Tintreach!" the Stufful cheered as he immediately lumbered over to start climbing up onto the machine, overly excited about this fated meeting. Crowe, bless her heart, tried to do the same but short stubby arms were not practically for climbing.

"Mentor! Our mentor is here!" she cried out instead, stomping her feet in delight.

And Kitty..well, she happily grabbed Oleander, grinning dangerously up at An Tintreach.

"It is! He's a wrestler in training!"

Godspeed, Oleander.

These mother hubbards.

[seeingeyesteward]

No. Not poor Ignis. He could hear the Pokemon cheering, the crazed sounding Pikachu going off. Absolutely not. Nope.

He turns smartly on his heel and walks away from the impending to disaster. Why you ask? To attempt to intercept a potential fanner to the flames in the shape of Pimpkaboo who was half dragging Dahlia now towards the very fun looking situation brewing. Her cries led him to her and he puts the Pumpkaboo under his arm as he walks with her.

Oleander... was abandoned. He looks over his shoulder with wibbling eyes, realizing that Ignis really was serious about him having to take a stronger stance in the face of scary things.

"A.. ah..aaaah....!! No.. No!! No I'm not, wait!! I was just--I was gonna show you how-- the machine.."

He was doomed. He was surrounded by insane aggressive big Pokemon led by this Nutterchu.

oh my god Ignis COLD

[rambling_runner]

An Tintreach, master of entrances, jumped from the machine as she electrified her tail. Pulling off a somersault she slammed her tail into the ground as she landed, creating a mini thunderclap, as if she hadn't announced her presence enough already.

"First, I gotta see my pupils! You all look so strong! You've been training nonstop, I can tell!" Those muscles! Those jaws! She openly admired them all, Mentor and ramble-rousing she was, these were also her friends and there was no hiding her utter joy at seeing them. She hugged Crowe and patted her mighty jaws, took Amicitia's forepaws and gently squeezed to feel his impressive muscles. "I'm so proud of you all!"

And then she turned, eyes gleaming to Oleander and Kitty. She greeted Kitty first, admiring her physique - she was like rock! - before putting a firm hand on Oleander's shoulder. "Hey, don't be shy! We all got that storm in our hearts, causing every beat to be a thunderclap! Anybody can be a wrestler, and we'll show you how. C'mon, let start TRAINING! I've waited so long to see you guys and test our strength together!"

[thenightsky]

If there was one thing that Noctis was really good at when it came to games, it was fighting style games. And while none of the games here were quick like Justice Monsters Five, he'd found some that were similar enough that he could lose himself in. Of course it did nothing to help his situation thinking of the games as similar to one from home because it made him think of Prompto but he was doing his best.

The prince was currently standing in front of a fighting style game with Carbuncle perched on his shoulder, the Espeon refusing to leave his trainer's side right now as he watched the sprites on the video screen dart about. The game was a fighting game where you had to progress through stages beating various other fighters and it featured tons of different fighting Pokemon.

No surprise there.

"Dammit!" Noct groaned as he lost in the second to last battle of the stage he was on, knocking a fist against the machine before he reached into his jacket pocket to get another token.

"You can do it, Noct!" Carbuncle mused happily, tails flicking as he pressed his head against the young man's.

"Thanks for the encouragement, buddy," the prince murmured, offering him a faint smile before dropping another token into the machine. "You know you can go hang out with Macavity right?"

"He'll be here for awhile. I want to be with you!" Because someone had to keep an eye on the Prince while he was trying to cope.

[rambling_runner]

Speaking of Macavity, the Umbreon was hard at work. Ash had told him about the situation with Noctis and Macavity remembered how upset Ash had been when Anthy had left. He knew he couldn't do much, but he wanted to do what he could. And here? He could get tokens for him to keep playing.

So when Macavity sneaked over, it was with a mouthful of tokens he had found lying on the floor or on the side of machines...or in people's pockets, or from jackpots people had won. He was tall enough to carefully slip the tokens into Noctis' pocket, before butting his hip to hide the delivery with a comforting cry. "Hi! Is he winning?" He asked Carbuncle, since Noctis wouldn't be able to understand him.

[thenightsky]

Oh Macavity.

Carbuncle was well aware of what his brother was doing and he appreciated it; a lot. He twilled in greeting when the other gave a cry, drawing Noct's attention down to where the Umbreon was.

"Oh, hey Macavity."

"He's doing really well! He keeps losing on the last stage, though," Carbuncle replied, sticking his tongue out in a blip afterwards. His trainer glanced at him before rolling his eyes.

"I'm just having trouble focusing, that's all.."

[rambling_runner]

Macavity wagged his tail and smiled up at his brother, putting his forepaws on the machine so he could see the screen better. He knew that Carbuncle could more easily communicate with their trainers, but he didn't begrudge him for it or anything. And it seemed like Noctis was happy, so mission accomplished!

"How does he play this one?" Macavity trilled, reaching out a paw and hitting one of the buttons. Thankfully, player 2 hadn't inserted any tokens, so he didn't disrupt Noctis' Boss Battle attempts.

[thenightsky]

"You gotta beat up the other guys!" Carbuncle chirped and that got a soft chuckle out of Noctis. So apparently someone had questions.

"Come here," Noct mused, reaching down to haul Macavity up and allow the Umbreon onto his other shoulder. "So the point is to beat each stage so then you can move on to the next. The goal is to try and get to the final boss so you can get the most tickets."

Carbuncle let out a twill of a laugh, tails flicking.

"All the tickets!"

[rambling_runner]

Macavity's eyes gleamed in a way that Ash would recognise and knew was only trouble. "Tickets...I can help with those." He winked to Carbuncle. "After I see him play! I've never seen a human fight before! Except when Ash playfights with us, but that's not real fighting."

Macavity hadn't been there when Ash had thrown himself at Rockets during Prom. But the playfighting was fun!

Two prompts cos I'm a glutton clearly

[rambling_runner]

[ What game would Ash dominate at an arcade... ]

Ash hadn't been to the Game Corner before. So when he'd gone to check out the prizes and found a red, fire fox Pokemon...he had to try and win it! 600 coins was the total he'd need so he got to work, buying some coins to feed into the machines and looking for ones he could have a good shot at winning. He'd played some zombie shooters in the past but not with light guns...he didn't fancy the look of the basketball type ones or the punching bag. But there was a machine pumping out music and he grinned. Oh yeah. Ash knew his DDR. He put in a coin, picked a hard difficulty track, and began. Even if he didn't nail it all, he was having a good time!

Unknowingly to him, as he focused on the arrows on the screen, Kinnagoe and Macavity had been let lose, along with An Tintreach. He had his bag down by the machine as he played and periodically, Kinnagoe and Macavity would sneak back, slip some ill-gotten prize coins into his bag, and then slip back off into the arcade to swipe more. They're helping! They're also stealing game tokens for Noctis, to make sure he's happy and can keep playing for as long as he wants.

[ YOU WON A - what ]

The prizes are machines mounted along one of the walls and clearly watched with CCTV. It was a bit like a bunch of snack machines; they display what they offer on a screen, you punch in what you want, feed it the required number of coins and the Pokeball or TM you selected falls into a bin at the bottom and it's all yours.

Ash however, had his arms folded and had clearly just spoken with one of the staff, who waved him off. Beside him is not a Vulpix. It's a floating polygon duck Porygon. His shoulder sagged and he checked out the new Pokemon at his side, heading over to the prize list to check out what he had actually gotten.

DDR YO

[thenightsky]

Speaking of Noctis..

The prince had given up, for now, on his fighting game, needing a break from the meticulous aspects of it. So he'd ended up wandering around only to find Ash..dancing? Was that dancing?

Whatever was going on looked entertaining and Noct ended up leaning on the bar behind the player 2 dance pad, watching the screen with a small grin. Carbuncle had abandoned him in favor of finding Macavity so for the moment it was just the boys.

"You're really good at this," he called over the music, glancing at Ash with the same small grin.

Apparently the arcade was helping.

[rambling_runner]

"I'm alright!" He was only getting Goods or Greats, not Perfects though. And still a few misses. He must be rusty. He'd glance over at Noctis with the last few steps, huffing out a breath.

"Have ya played DDR much?" The machine spat out several tickets, returning to the song selection screen - Ash has put several coins int he moment he'd gotten onto the machne, so it didn't immediately go back to the demo/'How to Play' display. He took his tickets and leaned down, adding them to the 'ticket pocket' of his bag.

[thenightsky]

"I've never played anything like this before," Noctis admitted with a sheepish laugh, unaware of what his friends Pokemon were doing but, let's be honest, he wouldn't have stopped them even if he knew.

"I mostly stuck to fighting games and some puzzle games." But only because his friends had enjoyed the puzzle games. Fighting games were his absolute favorite.

This..did look pretty intriguing though.

[rambling_runner]

"All you gotta do is hit the arrows when they get to the top of the screen. Unless the screen decides it's gonna fuck with ya. But it only does that on like, the bullshit difficulities." He stretched, stomping his heel to brose through the songs. It played a short clip for each track he passed.

"I haven't played may puzzle games. I really suck at them. But I played a few fighters. Do they have any good ones here?" He wouldn't say no to a good fighting game...after he's killed his legs with this machine.

[thenightsky]

"So it's not really dancing just following the beat?" Noctis observed, hesitating only a moment more before he ducked under the railing for the other pad and moved to drop a few tokens in. "Might as well give it a shot."

He's going to fail at this.

"A couple. There's one where you have to play as an Infernape and save your country from some evil warlord. It's pretty cool," he explained, watching Ash scroll through the songs. "Apparently it's a whole series."

For that blind dude

[thenightsky]

Eventually, even with the distractions the arcade provided, Noctis found himself thinking way too much. Thinking about things that were going to make his mood tank if he kept it up for too long which is why he ends up at the food court.

Eat some food. Clear his head. Get back to playing games.

Seemed like a reasonable plan.

A pile of nachos shaped vaguely like a Pikachu's head and a soda end up on his table, Carbuncle stealing some chips after hopping up on the table while Puff Trouble sat on the end of the table in diligent guard mode. Noctis just grinned faintly, briefly even, as he sank down and started to pick at his food, trying not to get lost in thought. A camera flash from somewhere close by makes his mood sink some and Carbuncle let's out a soft twill, nacho cheese on his nose as he peers at his trainer.

"I'm alright, buddy...I promise."

omf nachos are not food, Noct

[seeingeyesteward]

Ignis was fortunately unable to see the state of the food here. He would have marveled at their inability to maintain a basic chip shape consistently, how the cheese seemed to almost glow. The fact that people were laughing as they ate it when Ignis was a thousand percent certain he could make it better.

Not that he would, honestly. This wasn't the healthiest. It was unfortunately the only thing available. Ignis would go hungry for now.

But it seemed Noctis didn't have the same plan or dietary restraint. Ignis was led there by Dahlia who was quite happy to have her leading duties back in place while Oleander played with the other Pokemon.

"I hear crunching and smell cheese... really, Noct?"

He sits down gracefully, legs crossing out of habit. Dahlia peered over the table at the chips with eyes that indicated she really wanted them before turning to tug on Ignis's sleeve. Why not? Pleaaaseeee??

Above them, on his leash, Pimpkaboo as well as giving Ignis the eye though his version was dead inside. They both wanted nachos!!! Ignis please?

Unfortunate that their trainer was blind.

yes there are shut your mouth

[thenightsky]

"It covers all the food groups in one go," Noctis shot back without missing a bit, relaxing some as he focused his attention on Ignis and co. "And they're good despite what you might think."

Don't you judge him, Ignis.

Carbuncle, meanwhile, is here to help his fellow Pokemon! The Espeon let's out a twill of greeting to the pair and, using his psychic skills, puts some nachos on a napkin for each of them and floats it over to each of them.

Be quick and Ignis can't stop you~

THE CHEESE ISN'T EVEN REAL

[seeingeyesteward]

"Oh, does it..?"

Ignis judges the sound of Noctis's position at the table, then reaches across. He bumps a chip initially before taking one. Once he has it it's clear he's hesitating at trying it but at this point in his life who cares what he ate?

And he could hear the crunching, Dahlia. And Pimpkiboo. He wasn't stupid.

"I thought you would be with your.." Rather unruly "..Friend. Taking a momentary respite from the noise?"

THAT'S THE BEST PART

[thenightsky]

"Yep," the prince said with a shrug, even if Ignis couldn't see it, momentarily caught off guard as the older man reaches over to take a chip.

Ignis was trying Nachos. He was trying nachos.

"Something like that," Noctis murmured, picking up another chip to munch on it. "..I started thinking too much, I guess."

GROSS

[seeingeyesteward]

Okay, lets not get too excited, Noct. Ignis was holding a nacho. It had yet to reach his mouth because it was taking a lot of energy to convince himself it was okay to place into his mouth and he wouldn't immediately drop dead.

"I see. telling you to not do that would do no good, I suppose."

He had to tellPrompto enough times to stop thinking so much about Noctis being gone. Prompto still ended up taking his own time to adjust.

"The most I can do is assure you that he is safe, considering we have made it this far."