ArchivedLogs:Skeeball

Skeeball
Dramatis Personae Elli, Hailey, Lyric
In Absentia	2014-08-21 So. Many. Tickets.
Location <WES> Tilt - Salem Center
Loud, loud, loud; the first noticeable thing about this arcade is the noise. Games of every kind each make noises of their own, from the roll-thunk of skeeball to the wakka-wakka-wakka of Pacman to the stomping beats of DDR to the shots and yells of more modern shooters -- there is something for every taste, here, and over it all the constant backdrop of conversations and laughter, or shouts of anger or celebration as someone dies or claims a new high score. With many of the Xavier's students off campus, the makeup of Tilt is rather different than it usually is. Instead of the loud noise of teenagers of all shapes and sizes (and what shapes and sizes!), it is mostly empty, with one or two middle-school age students standing around an arcade machine with their parents nearby, and a lone teenager in front of Street Fighter IV, staring intently at the screen as her hands jerk the controls back and forth, mashing the buttons. "Come on, damn it, Honda, you little fuck, come a little bit closer..." Elli growls, teeth fiddling with her liprings as she chews on her lip. "Come on! Come /on/!" A few moments later, she tosses her hands up, yelling at the screen. "Damn it, Vrimson! Come on, what the hell's wrong with you?" School may not be in session but even outside of schooltime, Lyric /lives/ here; her dad's store is just down the street and her face is a familiar sight around town. Today she's brightly summery-dressed, long flowing-sleeved white top embroidered in cheerful purple flowers, long pale yellow skirt, jute sandals, a gauzy yellow headscarf wrapped around her hair and tucked neatly beneath her chin. She's got a handful of quarters in one hand and a lemonade in the other, a knit bag slung over her shoulder, and she's just leaving the skeeball row as she drifts closer to Elli's game. Spotting a familiar face her own face lights in a smile, though at the moment she hangs to the side, jingling quarters in her hand and watching the game wide-eyed with small pow-pow-pow motions of her fist. Unlike most of the students Hailey boarded at the school this summer. Not that she didn't have a home or anything but because her mother felt it would be better for her if she was at a school environment rather than on the streets as she usually was. Though since school was out Hailey had been doing what she wanted anyways, at the arcades, the side streets, wherever she felt like being was where she was at and today it just happened that she chose the nearest arcade to stalk. Though since the crowds were rather thin she was currently at the skeeball tables, getting an oddly high score. Elli growls under her breath in a muttering fashion, but she glances up at Lyric as she approaches. "Hey there!" She raises a hand to high-five the other girl, eyes twinkling as she gestures to the game. "Maybe you will have better luck than me; this game's been fucking me for the last ten minutes or so for no apparent reason. I swear, it's gotta be fucking cheating," she says, wildly gesticulating in the air at it. "I'll go burn my quarters on something that's less programmed to screw me." She smiles atLyric and reaches out to half pat, half pet the top of her head. "What are you up to, flatscan?" This last is said affectionately, rather than as the insult many use it as. Lyric peers thoughtfully at Elli, a faint wrinkle in her brow as she works through the other girl's words. Eventually she shakes her head, nose crinkling up with the offer of the Street Fighter machine. At the mention of something less programmed to screw her, she waves her quarter-laden hand towards the skeeball lanes. Tucking her lemonade into the crook of the opposite arm, she opens up her bag to extract a neatly-folded /pile/ of kind of a /ridiculous/ lot of tickets. Presumably just won from the skeeball machine as she nods that way to invite Elli to follow. Hailey hums a little bit, just watching the score rack up as she listlessly tosses another ball, the ball finding its home at the center, seeming to shift at the lsat moment as tickets continue to push and click out of the front of the machine. "Jesus," Elli says, eyeing the ticket-brick with an amused smile. "You're not kidding around there," she says. It doesn't take her more than a moment to scoop the pile of quarters off of the Street Fighter game and into her pocket before she follows Lyric, looking up and down the line of skeeball machines. Her eyes fall on Lyric, and she nods her head at the other girl. "Hey, what up." She looks down at the skeeball machines and grins. "You know, I haven't played this for a /long/ time." Like riding a bike, perhaps, she seems to be quite willing to get right back on, sliding the quarters into the machine and letting the balls roll down from under the plexiglass with a clacking sound. Lyric shakes her head with a bright smile, slipping the brick of tickets back into her bag and bouncing along towards the skeeball alley once more. Her smile stays wide as she watches Hailey play, though her nose wrinkles /back/ up as she looks at the -- /unusual/ path of Hailey's balls. She needs to set her quarters down on the lane next to Elli's and her cup down as well in order to free up her hands to speak, hands moving quickly with the silent(ly /amused/) signing: 'I come by mine honestly.' She picks her lemonade back up for a sip, though she sets it down again once she's tucked two quarters into the machine. 'I want --' she signs again, then mimes pumping a /shotgun/ -- though when she points back over towards the prize counter it's more evident that she's saving up for an enormous Super Soaker. Hailey hums a little as the sirens and alarms cool down from her winning streak. Seems like she's run out of cash for now though the machine continues to choke and spit tickets out for the girl. "Heh, looks like it's my lucky day." she nods and carefully starts to fold and pile the tickets up, giving a coy smile to the other two girls before laughing a little bit. "Quite the winning streak." Elli says, wryly, with a quick glance over to Hailey. She focuses on Lyric as she signs, her brow furrowing as she tries to follow. "You got your... in a week? Those are your tickets from a week? That's not as much as I thought then." She tilts her head to one side, then laughs as her eyes follow Lyric's gesture to the Super Soaker. "That thing is as big as you are," she replies, both in English and a mutilated ASL interpretation. Lyric's brows lift at Hailey, her own smile crooked. 'Looks like.' Her reply comes in quick sign language as well, but as she lifts the first ball to roll it -- her tongue pokes out the side of her mouth with concentration -- she lowers it again unthrown to give Elli a puzzled look. 'Today,' she clarifies uncertainly, 'These are my tickets from two hours.' Demonstratively, she rolls her ball up the ramp -- it veers straight and true on a solidly-aimed path for the hundred-spot in the corner. Hailey blinks at the other two with a little tilt of her head. "Sorry I don't speak Sign language, Oh um if you want the tickets I don't really need them. I mean the prizes here are kinda bleh." She chuckles a little bit as she adjusts her ticket pile to be easier counted. "Today. Oh." Elli blinks several times, and then leans down to pick up a ball herself. She rolls her ball up the ramp in a mimic of Lyric's movement, but there is nothing straight, true, or solid about it. It rolls at a slant, banging into the side of the wall and sliding down into the lowest ring of the game with a thud. She winces, as the game spits out a single ticket, mockingly. "Yeah, definitely has been a long time. I'm all set, Hailey. Just here for the fun, not the tickets. Lyric's eyes open a little wider at the notion that the prizes here are bleh. She points again to the giant Super Soaker, adding cheerfully to Elli: 'I'm going to sneak it up on Professor Wagner. Make him --" Both her hands flash open like: POOF. Her head tilts back at Hailey, lips curled in amusement. 'I don't speak English,' is her -- signed! -- reply. Hailey just blinks a little bit, watching her motions before nodding. "Oooh you want the water gun." She hands over the large stack of tickets. "Here, have at it. I prefer to use shadows for my tricks anyways." She snickers a little bit before shrugging her shoulders. "What I do enjoy, are greasy arcade snacks." Elli laughs and shakes her head. Some things don't need translation, and she grins mischeviously at Lyric. "Soak Professor Wagner? I bet that'll be fun. You'll have to tell me before you spring your surprise; I'd like to be able to get some popcorn ready." She smiles at the other two girls and tries again. The ball goes a little bit straighter this time, but still misses the center by a good amount. Lyric shakes her head at the offer of tickets, pointing to her own machine -- which is feeding out tickets at the maximum rate as she rolls another ball up and over into the hundred-point target. She bobs her head eagerly though, at the idea of shooting Professor Wagner; her fingers mime a waggling tail shooting straight up, fur ruffling at the back of a neck. One finger lifts like she's going to make The Most Important point, and afterYYYY-MM-DD demonstrating squirting Professor Wagner she turns around to mime /him/ shooting /back/. 'Only good ones ones to shoot are the ones who'll play, too.' Her nose wrinkles as she watches Elli, and she stifles a giggle. She holds up a ball in demonstration, rolling it neatly up the ramp once more. Her hand, now empty, repeats the motion a few more times for the other girl to see. Hailey blinks a little bit before shrugging. "Guess I'll go and grab some of those spark things, and whatever else when i go to grab some nice and hot arcade fries with some garlic ranch. "Those fries will kill ya," Elli says, with a grin. "But I can't stop eating them either," she confesses. Elli watches Lyric roll the ball several times before turning back and making her next attempt. The teenager puts a little bit more force behind it than she should, the ball skipping off of the ramp and slamming into the back of the arcade case with a loud thud. It does, however, get much closer to the center ring this time, violence aside. Elli blushes and immediately makes a lighter serve right afterwards. Nobody saw nothing. Lyric's eyes skim over towards the food counter, but she shakes her head there too, a small shudder running through her at the thought of the greasy arcade food. 'Have fun,' she signs to Hailey, futile though it may be; it at least comes with a friendly smile that is easy enough to interpret. And then she turns back to Elli, once more going through the motions of demonstrating The Perfect Pitch. Hailey goes to the front counter to get a rather large boat of the fries, smiling a little bit as she looks back. She leaves her tickets there for the clerk to give to the other girls. She also orders a large soda before waving a hand. "Hey I'm heading out, I'll see you guys around campus sometime." she nods before heading on out to get her munch on.