nerd alert

[makeachoice]

Since when was there an arcade in the Nexus? Has it always been there, or has Chris been simply ignorant of the video game haven's existence? The latter would be a shame seeing as how he's been suffering from video game withdrawals since his arrival. No matter at this moment, though. He can debate the when and how later. For now, or rather, for the past few hours, Chris has been indulging himself. As soon as his eyes fell on the large sign that proudly stated 'ARCADE', all of his other responsibilities of the day were pushed aside and forgotten. 

Anyone who steps in will see him hunched over a game halfway down the middle aisle. The screen illuminates his face with a shade of blue, and the concentration he holds is evident in his expression. He almost appears to be in a trance in the way that his unblinking eyes trace across the screen. Occasionally, he'll lift a hand to prop up his glasses that have slid down the bridge of his nose. Aside from that, his fingers are busy with tapping buttons and wiggling the joystick. Finally, if the spectator hasn't grown tired of watching him, the game plays a fanfare, and Chris is straightening himself and beaming. "Hell yeah!"

Oh, right, the outside world exists, and he apparently has an audience. No matter who is hovering nearby, Chris will greet them with a smile and a raised brow before issuing a challenge. "Think you can beat my high score?"

Comments

[makeachoice]

That is definitely a game that they can go searching for next. For now, Chris is eager to share the wonders of Street Fighter II with Han.

He visibly brightens when the other agrees, his smile widening even more so when Han asks for direction.

"Alright, so this-" He points to each button as he goes along. "--is a light kick, a hard kick, a light punch, and a hard punch. Use the joystick to move. You can jump, duck, and block with it, too. Oh! And you can do combo moves if you press the buttons and move the joystick in a specific order." But to spare Han from the confusion and the nerd babble, he'll skip explaining those. "First things first, though. You gotta pick your character."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Yeah, let's take gaming with Han on the slow and steady. He could probably handle the explanation of combo moves and how they work, but realistically, they would just keep them from the fun part. The actual game. And besides, he'd probably forget half of what Chris said by the end of the first match.

"Uhhh." Han moves the joystick around the character select screen. "Let's see. Blond haired guy with headband ... practically the same guy again ... fat guy ... stick figure ... don't even know what that guy is supposed to be ... token lady ... shemale with claws."

"I think the green one." Han says. He moves the cursor over to Blanka, but no idea he needs to press start to select him.

[makeachoice]

Well...Han is not wrong with any of those descriptions. But how dare is refer to Chun-Li at the token lady even if that is completely accurate.


"Blanka. Not a bad choice." Ah yes, the green goblin-ish guy with the sad backstory turned happy. "He's pretty popular, actually."

Okay.

Ready.

Start.

...Why isn't Han starting? The time will eventually run out, and his character of choice will be chosen since the cursor is highlighting the space around Blanka, but, for future reference of speeding things up, Han should know about the select button. "Let me just--" There. Chris will just press it for him.

"Okay, so now you just pick which country you want to fight in first, and the fight will start."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Oh, well look at that. Chris pushed a thing and the game selected a thing. He supposes that seems like something he should try to remember.

"Country?" He says with a shrug. "Country from where?" It's not as if Han's been to earth and recognizes any of these places or flags. Anyway, he scrolls around for a moment before picking the USSR stage because that seems as good as any other. And look, he even figured out that he has to push the thing Chris did just a moment ago to select the level.

Isn't he a quick learner?

Han decides to make a bit of small talk while he's watching that loading screen. "I assume you used to like playing these things at home?"

[makeachoice]

Chris tends to forget that the Nexus is not on Earth, and not all the inhabitants are from or are even familiar with Earth. He appears sheepish and briefly feels like the greatest idiot. "Uh, Earth, my planet." Whoops. "It doesn't even really matter which place you pick first."

Good job, Han. Anything is possible now! That's one button figured out, and the rest will come.

"I played this one a lot when I was younger," he says, his eyes set on the game as the battle starts. "Arcades are kind of hard to find." There are certainly none near him. "But I played other games."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I suppose I should have known." It was a game that Chris was familiar with, after all. Plus, no single planet, other than Earth, that he knows is so obsessively divided up by its inhabitants. It's just not a thing that happens very often where he comes from.

Oh. The thing is starting!

He's gotta do some stuff, right?

Uhhhhhhhhh.

Move the stick and, okay, the green guy starts moving around. Push the buttons like Chris was saying and the green guy attacks. This doesn't seem to bad ...

Han walks the first stage Zangief all the way into the corner of the level and starts cheesing him to death with the low kick.

[makeachoice]

He shrugs at that. No shame in Han not knowing. It's not like Chris knows much of anything about any other planets.

Wow. Han Solo is truly a novice at this. But he is winning so far, so whatever works for him. Also, there would be no judgement if Han was losing. Video games are meant for fun, and Chris is perfectly happy talking to other while he mashes buttons. He just hopes that Han is enjoying it.

"So you've never seen stuff like this anywhere else?" Are video games seriously just an Earth thing, or are they just super uncommon?

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Well he can't be good at everything, can he? More time and he'd have a better idea of what he was doing, of course. The aim wasn't to come here and become a video game wizard, though, it was to talk to Chris.

"Depends on if you count holographic things as 'like this' or not." He says with a shrug as the next match starts. This time he's working in more than just the one move, but he's still trying to grind the enemy character into the corner.

[makeachoice]

Talking to Chris might mean becoming a video game wizard, honestly.

"That sort of counts. Same concept, different utilization." Not as fleshed out and expanded upon. "Wait until you see some of the other stuff. The graphics are insane." Just give him some time to find a system and the games if they exist here (which they should, considering the arcade).

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"They don't tend to be geared towards entertainment." Han says as he's trying to virtually kick and punch the crap out of his CPU opponent. "They're more often simulations for learning something."

Not that he want's to step on Chris' enthusiasm, but he does have some things other than games on his mind. Hopefully, a subject change won't rub him too much the wrong way? "What have you been up to besides spending time here, lately?"

[makeachoice]

Chris is about to protest, jump in and state that video games from Earth have lessons attached. But then he recalls that newest Mario game where all of the characters can dress as cats. Okay, so a good number of them are solely for mindless fun, and even the ones that involve learning are still designed to be entertaining in some way or another. "Some games are like that." Is all he says.

Chris could go on and on about video games for hours, so a subject change is probably needed for Han's sake. Besides, he actually enjoys the shift in topic. Small talk doesn't bother him. "Odd jobs, Spartan training under Nat, that sort of stuff. I think I found my rhythm here. Like, living normally even though this place is seriously not normal."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"So you're not like the people that go back and forth then?" Han says as a response. He knows a lot of people do, but he'd be kind of glad to find out that it wasn't the case for Chris.

Han seems to have beaten Zangief and his little pixilated plane is now flying off to Japan. Looks like the next match is against the fat one.

[makeachoice]

"You mean to home?" Like to home home? Discomfort washes over his previously amused expression. Hopefully Han's concentration is set on the game. Though the change in Chris' tone might be a giveaway. "No, I don't--I just stay here."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

One of these days, Chris is going to have to explain to him what happened. He has heard bits and pieces of things that didn't really make a lot of sense from Josh. And it was during an episode, so he took it all with a grain of salt.

"Good." He says with a nod. "I'll feel better knowing that Josh has someone looking out for him."

It's possible that this very subject came up while the two of them were working on the speeder a few days ago. It's been on his mind ever since. This pirate has no intention of leaving all the people he's befriended in the Nexus behind, but let's face it. This guy is probably never going to settle down in one place for any length of time.