5/28/2006
Twinkle Park Entertainment Center
Offering the best in cutting-edge entertainment at reasonable rates, the heart of the Twinkle Park Entertainment Center is a darkened circular chamber of cavernous proportions and industrial decor. The noise level here is overpowering, the crowd easily drowning out the background music. Lit with an eclectic collection of colored lights, the room also has several artifacts on display. Flashy holographic artwork occupies a few niches along one wall, as do scale models, and costume-wearing mannequins. Dominating the center of the room is an actual ride mecha, one of the massive machines used in the filming of the cult adventure movie, "New Avalon Panic".
Near the standing mech is the main information and ticketing counter, fashioned from large slabs of armor with the Twinkle crest laser-engraved into them. Past the grinning service personnel manning the desk, doors and corridors lead off to different wings of the center. There's the in-house disco, the famous VR simulators, even conventional video games. A short lift journey down to the basement levels would bring you to the larger rides. There's even a whole haunted house somewhere down there. Across from the main desk, a pair of glass double doors lead to the outside world...assuming you can wade your way through the crowd.
( A tall, fit teenage kid who looks like a cross between a human and a giraffe is on one of the rhythm games in the arcade dressed in ludricously overdone 'cool' clothing: designer jeans, mesh shirt, Freddie Mercury jacket, and a backwards black baseball cap. The speedball announcer screaming encouragement is barely heard over the sounds of his 'adoring', similary dressed clique of varying animal species. "Whoo! You're so cool, Jack!" The kid strikes a silly, masculine pose. "Yes, I am." )
Gantz wonders again why in the hell he bothered to come here. Amusement parks of any sort just aren't his style. He prefers showing off his 'lone wolf' mercenary attitude out in the field or taunting Klonoa. Cleaning his guns is also a top priority. Buying ammunition. Riding around on his hovercycle is fun too but he can't afford to waste anymore fuel until he gets paid again by GUN. So why is he here? Eh, they had some delicious icecream in the Twinkle Cafe and he really just can't think of anything else to do right now. The enormous quad-barrelled pistol was left at 'home' in favor of the two side pistols, knowing he might want both hands free. As he walks across the much too dazzling and loud floor, he notices some kid, probably not really that much younger than himself but he considers anyone remotely fun-loving and young to be a kid, being worshipped by a pack of idiots. He sneers as he watches the charade. How pathetic.
"Hey! You there! The poseur with the two guns!" The hypocritical fish kid on the dance stage calls out to Gantz. Uh oh, he must have seen the guy sneer. Completely oblivious to the latent danger this guy carries, he places one foot on the balancing pole and points right at Gantz. The entire crowd of preppies turn as one to face the challenged opponent. "You. Me. On the dance stage. I'll show you the ultimate dance!" Another pose and then all of the kids smirk/sneer/leer at the guy. They haven't said anything yet but look like they're going to if he doesn't get on.
Gantz puts his hands in his pockets cooly while regarding the pack of morons that are looking at him. He shrugs calmly and say, not worrying if his voice has carried over the loud music or not because he's certain his expression is dismissive enough, "Dancing is for weaklings who can't impress people with actual talent."
"Eh? I can't hear you." states the fish kid. One of his compatriots leans up onto the stage to whisper something into his ear. His eyes widen and his jaw drops in a comical way. He then looks towards Gantz pointedly; not with an expression of anger or contempt, but rather a weird sort of awe. "Oooo! ... that was a cool thing to say." He then resumes his regular cartoonishly arrogant poise, scoffing. "But I see you've got two big guns. So I don't want to hear that from you." He nudges one of the sycophants. They suddenly all start bursting into laughter. "See? I can say smooth, witty things too!"
"Is that so?" Gantz says with one brow arched. Still, it amuses him that this loser has no idea what he's messing with. Regardless, he's not about to make a fool out of himself. He's not weak, oh no, but he's not dumb enough to jump into something he knows nothing about. Besides! Dancing is useless. What would he ever need it for? "...Unless you pay me for my time, there is no way you're getting me up there."
Matthew points at his chest demonstratively, striking a huge, sharky grin. "How about this. I pay for your game. You challenge me to any song you feel like. If I win, I get bragging rights. If you win, you win like..." He consults his peers quickly. "How much money y'all got?" The similarly-dressed idiots consort with each other for a second and then pass something to the second-in-command, a stupid-looking frog. "500 Mobiums."
Gantz immediatly pricks his ears up at this. 500 mobiums is actually not as much as he'd like. If he could bargain, he'd push it up to... "1,000 Mobiums and you have a deal," he says, knowing there's no way they'd find double the money in such short time.
Matthew rubs the bottom of his chin. "We can do 1000 Mobiums." The other preppies look like they're about to protest to this but are halted by their leader holding up his hand and going: "Shh! I don't want to hear it! You won't be paying this cat a dime anyway." He puts in money to the machine to start it up and then scoots over on the dance pad to make room for Gantz.
Gantz considers this. He has a feeling he just made a stupid bet but when all is said and done, he IS the one with the guns. And he'll just take that 500 mobiums as payment. He glowers at the shark-guy's cronies and then pushes his way through them, up to the dance pad. Suddenly standing in front of everyone's eyes is a tad... no, not frightening. Just... odd. He knows no one else in the park is probably looking but this throng of losers. Yet it feels like the whole world is staring. He's not going to back down. As he takes his place, he views the pad and screen carefully. His heart pounds... if he loses and Klonoa hears about this he's not entirely sure he'll live it down, money or no money. "Hurry up, I haven't got all night."
The shark kid immediately selects the hardest song available on the machine. To further humiliate his opponent, he also selects an insanely feminine, girly song to play. The entire area of the room is awash in pink and flowers and whatever. To make things worse, he immediately starts trash-talking, too: "Maybe we'll start with a little girly song for the girly man..." Gantz's fears of the crowd perhaps staring at him actually comes to fruition. Soon there are a lot more people crowded around the machine... though interestingly, most of them are dressed like he is or completely naked. Not unusual, since they are Mobians, but not a lot of people are wearing alternate styles of clothes. Gantz's challenger smirks and hovers his hand over the start button. "You ready?" he teases, hitting the button to start the insanely fast song before getting a reply.
Gantz sweatdrops at the extremely feminine choice of music and the additional people that come over to watch the minute the area is inundated with it. Though he doesn't know quite how this game works, the fast-paced beat gives him a bad feeling. He isn't stupid. He knows that this guy is probably trying to screw him over. He also dislikes the suggestion that he is anything but manly. Yet he tries to play it cool as ever. Then he clenches one white-gloved hand into a fist as he realizes that something is happening on the screen. He studies it intently, being of reasonably quick-wit, and sees arrows moving. Hastily, he looks around and then at his opponent. He had sort of been watching the game before he'd come over and understood that one MOVED for this game but what was the objective? Looking down, he sees the pad and experimentally hits his foot down just as the arrow hits the empty arrow-shaped space, getting a comment of "good" from the machine. And that's when he realizes the screen is now FULL of arrows.
Needless to say, the arcade junkie kid is dancing like a machine all over the rhythm game, showing off like crazy. Whoever this kid is, either he plays this game all day long or has a lot of talent. He isn't even sweating as his feet literally go all over the place. The crowd ooos and aaas, simultaneously paying attention to him and Gantz. He isn't too worried; he didn't seem to know what he was doing and got a 'good' on the first step. So.
Gantz makes a fast recovery just before the machine can launch him off for having too many misses. He's a quick study too. It's simple really and he's glad he's in damned good shape. He also wishes his fingers were touching these pads because, though he's fast on his feet, his trigger fingers are much swifter. For someone who has never even played this game before, on an obscenely hard song, he's doing well enough to actually KEEP GOING. Not get a good score but he just barely manages to finish the song, after which his ruff of fur is sticky with sweat and his body beginning to ache quickly with the exertion. Those damn diagonal changes are a bitch and it took him a second try to realize he needed to hold for the really bizarre, elongated arrows. His heart is pounding even more wildly now inspite of the fact he's almost forgotten about the crowd. He moved with much less grace than the strange shark kid but he feels a little vindicated, considering he just started.
Matthew looks to his right to check up on how Gantz is doing; hoho, that guy must be drowning by now. And that does not sound like the song of failure; rather, it sounds like the sound of something /keeping up/. After a stream of perfects, he completely stops what he's doing. He smiles and gives him a thumbs up. "Hey, you're pretty good." he states. Then one of the people in the crowd point to the screen. "HEY! Pay attention to the screen, you dummy?" "Huh?" He turns around just in time to miss the last step that would allow him to continue. *** FAILURE *** He immediately drops to his knees and holds his hands over his head. "NOOOOOOOO!!!!" he wails. The assembled people roll their eyes and depart just as soon as they come, just leaving those two. The shark kid looks up at Gantz pitifully. "Okay... all right... I admit it. You have the ultimate dance. I guess you want your money, huh?"
Gantz looks down at the kid on his knees and proceeds to wipe the sweat out of his blue eyes. He pauses a moment as he considers this and then points out, partly because he's tired and partly because this has given him an idea, "You probably don't have that much, do you?"
Matthew slowly comes to his feet, reaching into his pocket as if to get out a wallet. "Don't worry. I can pay all of it. Just let me get my... CHEESE IT!" One of his assembled groupies throws a pitcher of lemon juice right at Gantz's /face/ while the shark kid immediately tries to beat feet towards the arcade exit... backwards into the sinister alley.
Gantz just stands there after the lemon juice splatters him right in the damn eyes! "SHIT!" He scrubs at his face awkwardly but he's a member of GUN and he knows the target is always more important than being able to see straight... right? Not even thinking, he draws his red pistol faster than most people can say "Hold up!" and fires in the kid's direction without thinking.
The arcade junkie already has a good amount of distance between him and Gantz--he's fast on his feet if nothing else. Fortunately for him, he has the apparent presence of mind to duck behind an arcade cabinet, which pratically explodes as it's shot at. Mysteriously, the kid who threw lemon juice in Gantz's face is suddenly nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, the shot causes the kid to scream like a little girl and causes an uproar in the Entertainment Center. Civilians flee for their lives while some try to call the police with installed phones. The kid darts out of the back door into the alley, noticing that it's a dead end. "Aw, crap." He then looks upwards and takes a standing leap to grab a fire escape, scurrying up it to get to the roof. "Crap crap crap crap crap. I didn't know that guy was a psycho."
Gantz ignores what little crowd is left around him, made up of no one else but the remaining cronies, and watches people fleeing in a bit of a daze. "Shit!" Quickly, he puts his gun away. He knows he's pretty memorable so he's probably going to get a run-in with the Rocket Knights at this rate. No sense in making things worse than they already are. But that kid... what the hell was he trying to pull? That's when he remembers something. He looks for the frog kid, who was given the pooled money earlier. Better to get revenge later, in a more covert method (after all that kid didn't actually hurt him enough to warrant pulling out a gun but bad habits leads to bad mistakes.) Right now, he should discern where that money actually went. If the shark kid still has it then he can find him in a minute. It won't be easy to leave the entertainment center without being seen by someone.
The frog kid in the ridiculous clique clothes is nowhere to be seen. In fact, none of the original idiots are anywhere to be seen. It's like they literally vanished into thin air. They must do this sort of thing often, as they seem to be completely gone. Nevertheless, two fat security guards, both pigs amusingly enough, come waddling towards Gantz while trying to wave their flashlights in as threatening a manner as possible. They obviously don't seem too thrilled at the prospect of taking on an armed shooter without guns... but they /did/ wait until he put down the gun. If they had but one chance to keep their jobs this would be it. "Hey, you!" one of them says, without much conviction. "Stop right there! You're just making it worse on yourself!" They're already sweating and heaving with exertion.
Meanwhile... the shark kid is already on the roof, glancing down at the entrance. He doesn't /think/ that crazy man saw him escape, but he doesn't want to be around when the police comes. He runs across the roof towards what's ostenably the entrance of the building and jumps down to a balcony, trying to get back onto the streets without being seen. Too much.
Gantz scowls at the two officers and decides that this isn't the time to bog himself down with incompetents. He plays his trump card by pulling out whatever officiality the GUN handed him when they contracted him to their special department and shows it to them. "This is none of your business. Now let me go on!" He's too young and new at this game to threaten them with uncomfortableness via bureaucracy but sensible enough not to threaten their lives.
The two security guards immediately have a change in attitude upon seeing the unmistakable GUN identification. "Oh! I didn't know you were... errr..." Actually, they look quite relieving in not having to take down this guy. One of them even points towards the back entrance. "If you're trying to catch that guy, he left out that back entrance. What'd he do, anyway, I couldn't see with all of these people."
If Gantz is even paying a small amount of attention, he can see one of the neon letters attached to the front of the building come off with a great noise, crashing to the ground below. A person is on top of it, crumpled in a heap upon the shattered plastic 'E'. Though upon seeing that Gantz is /still/ there he gets to his feet again and runs again, screaming like a loon. "There he is!"
Gantz sees the letter land and his eyes glitter as he notes the person that helped it to fall. He grins at the guards, "I can't tell you, it's too important." It's a matter of money. Nothing is more important than money except for... 'Poison Claws Janga' and he still has no idea where that bastard is. But now isn't the time. He forcibly tries to push his way past the guards with an additional comment, "Now out of my way!"
( As soon as he's free of them, he races out the glass doors like nobody's business and heads for his hovercycle which is parked close by. He'll catch this little punk no matter what! )
(
geocities.com/dove_cg)