Day 44 Chapter 13
- Location
- Around here
[X] Plan Wii Advertisement Chapter
Dinner continues with light, on-and-off conversation from everyone, and when the last morsel of Archer's delicious cooking has been eaten, he and Kure Minako clear off the table.
"Hey mom, can I show Homura some of my videogames?"
"Did you get all your homework done?"
Kirika nods, saying "Yes, mom."
Kure Minako places the last of the dishes on the dish rack, and dries her hands off with a towel before giving Kirika a pat on her head. "Then of course you can, pumpkin."
Kirika smiles for her mother, and leads you back to the television, turning it on and booting up her game system. "Are you going to show me the one about wolves?" you ask, not sure what to expect from any of Kirika's games.
"One about wolves..." you hear Kirika mutter to herself. "Nah, I can't show you that one," she says. "I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about, and if I'm right then I can't show you that because it's back at Oriko's place. Also it's an anime, not a videogame, so you must have really misheard me when we were talking on the train that day." You try to solve the puzzle Kirika has left you on your own, while she boots up her system. "Instead, I'm going to show you something else that's really cool."
Underneath the television is a slim white bar, which Kirika adjusts just so before turning on her system, and two wireless controllers which she takes into each hand. As her system finishes booting up, a small cursor appears on the screen, following the movement of the controller in Kirika's right hand. "The Wii's got motion controls," she says, wiggling the cursor back and forth for demonstration before moving on to the icon in the upper-left corner which reads -(Metroid Prime)-. "And this is one of the best games for the Wii."
After an impressively-rendered title screen, Kirika loads up the game, immediately dropping you into the body of an imposing figure clad in purple and gold armour. The red helmet and breastplate remind you of a robin, but you aren't sure what to make of the large shoulders or the weapon on the figure's right arm. "Ah, crap," Kirika says, firing on a purple-trimmed door with a three-pronged purple beam. The door opens on what appears to be a mining compound of some kind, and threatening noises abound from all sides. "This is one of the worst places to drop a newbie off at."
"Why?"
"This whole area's crawling with Pirates," Kirika says. "The bad guys, that is. They're called Space Pirates. This area is their base, and the whole place is just an absolute nightmare to get through because everything's trying to kill you." After giving you a rundown on how the game plays and what each of the buttons do, Kirika hands the controller over to you, saying "Have at it, sis. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask."
You take a few moments to familiarise yourself with the controls before leaving the safe area, asking as you move your character out from cover "So, why is the electric attack purple? Why not green, like Nagatsuki Miyuki's?"
Kirika shrugs, saying "I dunno, that's just how the game is. The third game does have a green electric attack, but it's also not as good as this one."
You nod, opening fire on one of the enemies as they try to attack you. When you're close enough to one to get a good look at them, they remind you of lizards, standing upright and armed with futuristic weaponry, but in your mind you're imagining blasting something else entirely. "I'm really impressed," you say as your weapon crackles and hums with each shot of the electric beam you fire on your enemies. "This is nothing at all like the zombie shooter at the arcade."
"What's even crazier is there's not much of an age difference between the two," Kirika says. You don't believe her at all, until she adds "That arcade game is probably from the mid-nineties, and this one's originally from two-thousand-two. But this and the second game in the series got graphics updates and new controls so you could play them on the Wii."
"Still," you say, triggering a puzzle of some sort that leads to an item pickup, "I'm really impressed. The graphics are amazing, and the motion controls are a lot more fluid and responsive than the ones at the arcade." You think you could get used to this.
"Videogames have been getting better and better for years now. Are you sure you're not just out of the loop about what's new?"
"I've spent most of my life in and out of hospitals for my heart problems," you say. You don't mean to make Kirika feel bad about her comment, but you don't know any better way to phrase the truth. "I have vague memories of playing something on my father's really old system when I was much younger, but the graphics here really blow his away."
"Do you remember what he had?"
You shake your head. "I can only remember that it was a grey, handheld box-ish looking thing. He had this one puzzle game that involved arranging coloured blocks, but I can't remember much else about it, or what other games he might have had."
"Sounds like Tetris," Kirika says. "If it's a handheld, then it was probably a Gameboy. I've never played one myself, but I heard the originals are almost indestructible. If you've still got it somewhere, it'd probably still work. That'd be cool to see."
Though you're still getting used to the controls, and experience more than a few slip ups along the way, you find that you're enjoying yourself as you blast through the corridors of the enemy mining compound, imagining the white face of the Incubator in the greenish, reptilian form of every enemy you kill. You pass the next few rooms with ease, continuing as you had been, until the ominous music of the mining compound is replaced with a track that is immediate and threatening. At Kirika's words, "Hand it over to me," you pause the game, and let your big sis take over. "These guys are really tough."
Once Kirika unpauses the game, you're treated to a cutscene - with graphics just as impressive as the rest of the game, if not more so - of enemies wearing black and purple armour dropping from the ceiling. The game returns to Kirika's control and the enemies advance, but are swiftly cut down by a powerful and continuous burst of energy from Kirika's weapon. She said they were really tough, and yet she cut them down in an instant. "Well, they are really tough, if you're just encountering them for the first time. If you see them again, charge up your beam and then fire a missile. It'll drain your ammo really fast, but it's also the fastest way of dealing with those guys when they swarm you."
Over the course of the next hour or so, you and Kirika take turns advancing through the levels of the game. She takes over for you at the harder spots, making them look hilariously easy in comparison to how difficult she sells them to you as being. You marvel at the diversity of the game world as you travel through the dim and grungy tunnels of the mining compound, through a lush jungle canopy, the sandy ruins of an ancient civilisation, the heart of an active volcano, and the snowy crevasses of a frozen tundra, collecting items and blasting away at everything in your path. Never once does the quality of the game diminish, neither its graphics, the varied gameplay which demands a mastery of both combat and puzzle-solving, nor the impressive sound and level design that leaves you blown away each time something new graces your senses.
Finally, after letting you experience as much of the world as she can, you and Kirika head back to the mining compound, where Kirika soundly dismantles the boss of the area, a massive and monstrously mutated version of one of the regular enemies. Its defeat gives your character a new upgrade to their armoured suit which colours them black and silver, and as soon as she is able to, Kirika saves the game. "You want to keep going?" she asks, offering the controller back to you, "Or do you want to try something else? Grandma and grandpa always get me games for my birthday and Christmas, and Oriko'll get me games sometimes too if I've been good, so I've got a lot of different games I can show you."
"Let's try something else," you say. "I'll admit, you've done a very good job of grabbing my interest, and I want to see more."
You've been nursing the most recent of several cups of after-dinner coffee, as you and Minako watch your daughters enjoying themselves on Kirika's game system. "I'm really glad to see those two getting along," you say. "I remember they had a pretty rocky start when they first met, but-" you snap your fingers. "-now they're so close they might as well have been sisters from birth."
"I'd like that," Minako says, smiling as she leans against your shoulder. "I know they talk about being sisters all the time, but they look so cute together that I'd really like to make them sisters for real."
"Just as long as I don't screw anything up."
The picture of Kirika at her birthday party hasn't been put away yet, and even though your eyes are fixed on Minako's and your daughter, your mind is fixed elsewhere. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but, do you have any other pictures of your ex? Or did you get rid of them all after the divorce?"
"I think there might still be a few," Minako says, getting up from her chair to walk over to the kitchen counter where the aforementioned picture still stands. "But I got rid of a lot of the pictures of us from when we were dating, and I only kept the ones with him in them if Kirika was also in them." Minako makes her way back to you, kissing you on the cheek as she asks "Why do you ask?"
"I just wanted to make sure you aren't letting your memories of that man control you," you say. "I can't imagine how what he did must have hurt you, and I just want to make sure you aren't letting them continue to hurt you."
"Aw, that's so sweet of you," Minako says, giving you another kiss. "But that's why I only kept the pictures of him that have Kirika in them. My little pumpkin's the only reminder of him I need."
"You know, it's funny," you say, causing Minako to look at you with a confused expression. "Before he adopted me, my father had another child, a daughter by a previous marriage. They were forced to be separated before he adopted me, and so I went most of my childhood not knowing I had an older sister; and when we finally met..." You sigh; it's already too late to prevent Homura from becoming like you, so all you can do is hope that Kirika doesn't meet the same fate as the Illya you knew in your own time. "Well, I'm just a little surprised the way history's repeated itself. I adopt a kid, and just like me her older sister is also from a previous marriage."
"You never told me you had a sister," Minako says, as she resumes her previous position of leaning up against your shoulder. "I want to hear more about her. Do you think she'd like Homura? Do you think she and I would have gotten along? Come on, tell me everything."
"Well, alright," you say. "her name was Illya, and she..."
[ ] Wat do?
Dinner continues with light, on-and-off conversation from everyone, and when the last morsel of Archer's delicious cooking has been eaten, he and Kure Minako clear off the table.
"Hey mom, can I show Homura some of my videogames?"
"Did you get all your homework done?"
Kirika nods, saying "Yes, mom."
Kure Minako places the last of the dishes on the dish rack, and dries her hands off with a towel before giving Kirika a pat on her head. "Then of course you can, pumpkin."
Kirika smiles for her mother, and leads you back to the television, turning it on and booting up her game system. "Are you going to show me the one about wolves?" you ask, not sure what to expect from any of Kirika's games.
"One about wolves..." you hear Kirika mutter to herself. "Nah, I can't show you that one," she says. "I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about, and if I'm right then I can't show you that because it's back at Oriko's place. Also it's an anime, not a videogame, so you must have really misheard me when we were talking on the train that day." You try to solve the puzzle Kirika has left you on your own, while she boots up her system. "Instead, I'm going to show you something else that's really cool."
Underneath the television is a slim white bar, which Kirika adjusts just so before turning on her system, and two wireless controllers which she takes into each hand. As her system finishes booting up, a small cursor appears on the screen, following the movement of the controller in Kirika's right hand. "The Wii's got motion controls," she says, wiggling the cursor back and forth for demonstration before moving on to the icon in the upper-left corner which reads -(Metroid Prime)-. "And this is one of the best games for the Wii."
After an impressively-rendered title screen, Kirika loads up the game, immediately dropping you into the body of an imposing figure clad in purple and gold armour. The red helmet and breastplate remind you of a robin, but you aren't sure what to make of the large shoulders or the weapon on the figure's right arm. "Ah, crap," Kirika says, firing on a purple-trimmed door with a three-pronged purple beam. The door opens on what appears to be a mining compound of some kind, and threatening noises abound from all sides. "This is one of the worst places to drop a newbie off at."
"Why?"
"This whole area's crawling with Pirates," Kirika says. "The bad guys, that is. They're called Space Pirates. This area is their base, and the whole place is just an absolute nightmare to get through because everything's trying to kill you." After giving you a rundown on how the game plays and what each of the buttons do, Kirika hands the controller over to you, saying "Have at it, sis. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask."
You take a few moments to familiarise yourself with the controls before leaving the safe area, asking as you move your character out from cover "So, why is the electric attack purple? Why not green, like Nagatsuki Miyuki's?"
Kirika shrugs, saying "I dunno, that's just how the game is. The third game does have a green electric attack, but it's also not as good as this one."
You nod, opening fire on one of the enemies as they try to attack you. When you're close enough to one to get a good look at them, they remind you of lizards, standing upright and armed with futuristic weaponry, but in your mind you're imagining blasting something else entirely. "I'm really impressed," you say as your weapon crackles and hums with each shot of the electric beam you fire on your enemies. "This is nothing at all like the zombie shooter at the arcade."
"What's even crazier is there's not much of an age difference between the two," Kirika says. You don't believe her at all, until she adds "That arcade game is probably from the mid-nineties, and this one's originally from two-thousand-two. But this and the second game in the series got graphics updates and new controls so you could play them on the Wii."
"Still," you say, triggering a puzzle of some sort that leads to an item pickup, "I'm really impressed. The graphics are amazing, and the motion controls are a lot more fluid and responsive than the ones at the arcade." You think you could get used to this.
"Videogames have been getting better and better for years now. Are you sure you're not just out of the loop about what's new?"
"I've spent most of my life in and out of hospitals for my heart problems," you say. You don't mean to make Kirika feel bad about her comment, but you don't know any better way to phrase the truth. "I have vague memories of playing something on my father's really old system when I was much younger, but the graphics here really blow his away."
"Do you remember what he had?"
You shake your head. "I can only remember that it was a grey, handheld box-ish looking thing. He had this one puzzle game that involved arranging coloured blocks, but I can't remember much else about it, or what other games he might have had."
"Sounds like Tetris," Kirika says. "If it's a handheld, then it was probably a Gameboy. I've never played one myself, but I heard the originals are almost indestructible. If you've still got it somewhere, it'd probably still work. That'd be cool to see."
Though you're still getting used to the controls, and experience more than a few slip ups along the way, you find that you're enjoying yourself as you blast through the corridors of the enemy mining compound, imagining the white face of the Incubator in the greenish, reptilian form of every enemy you kill. You pass the next few rooms with ease, continuing as you had been, until the ominous music of the mining compound is replaced with a track that is immediate and threatening. At Kirika's words, "Hand it over to me," you pause the game, and let your big sis take over. "These guys are really tough."
Once Kirika unpauses the game, you're treated to a cutscene - with graphics just as impressive as the rest of the game, if not more so - of enemies wearing black and purple armour dropping from the ceiling. The game returns to Kirika's control and the enemies advance, but are swiftly cut down by a powerful and continuous burst of energy from Kirika's weapon. She said they were really tough, and yet she cut them down in an instant. "Well, they are really tough, if you're just encountering them for the first time. If you see them again, charge up your beam and then fire a missile. It'll drain your ammo really fast, but it's also the fastest way of dealing with those guys when they swarm you."
Over the course of the next hour or so, you and Kirika take turns advancing through the levels of the game. She takes over for you at the harder spots, making them look hilariously easy in comparison to how difficult she sells them to you as being. You marvel at the diversity of the game world as you travel through the dim and grungy tunnels of the mining compound, through a lush jungle canopy, the sandy ruins of an ancient civilisation, the heart of an active volcano, and the snowy crevasses of a frozen tundra, collecting items and blasting away at everything in your path. Never once does the quality of the game diminish, neither its graphics, the varied gameplay which demands a mastery of both combat and puzzle-solving, nor the impressive sound and level design that leaves you blown away each time something new graces your senses.
Finally, after letting you experience as much of the world as she can, you and Kirika head back to the mining compound, where Kirika soundly dismantles the boss of the area, a massive and monstrously mutated version of one of the regular enemies. Its defeat gives your character a new upgrade to their armoured suit which colours them black and silver, and as soon as she is able to, Kirika saves the game. "You want to keep going?" she asks, offering the controller back to you, "Or do you want to try something else? Grandma and grandpa always get me games for my birthday and Christmas, and Oriko'll get me games sometimes too if I've been good, so I've got a lot of different games I can show you."
"Let's try something else," you say. "I'll admit, you've done a very good job of grabbing my interest, and I want to see more."
You've been nursing the most recent of several cups of after-dinner coffee, as you and Minako watch your daughters enjoying themselves on Kirika's game system. "I'm really glad to see those two getting along," you say. "I remember they had a pretty rocky start when they first met, but-" you snap your fingers. "-now they're so close they might as well have been sisters from birth."
"I'd like that," Minako says, smiling as she leans against your shoulder. "I know they talk about being sisters all the time, but they look so cute together that I'd really like to make them sisters for real."
"Just as long as I don't screw anything up."
The picture of Kirika at her birthday party hasn't been put away yet, and even though your eyes are fixed on Minako's and your daughter, your mind is fixed elsewhere. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but, do you have any other pictures of your ex? Or did you get rid of them all after the divorce?"
"I think there might still be a few," Minako says, getting up from her chair to walk over to the kitchen counter where the aforementioned picture still stands. "But I got rid of a lot of the pictures of us from when we were dating, and I only kept the ones with him in them if Kirika was also in them." Minako makes her way back to you, kissing you on the cheek as she asks "Why do you ask?"
"I just wanted to make sure you aren't letting your memories of that man control you," you say. "I can't imagine how what he did must have hurt you, and I just want to make sure you aren't letting them continue to hurt you."
"Aw, that's so sweet of you," Minako says, giving you another kiss. "But that's why I only kept the pictures of him that have Kirika in them. My little pumpkin's the only reminder of him I need."
"You know, it's funny," you say, causing Minako to look at you with a confused expression. "Before he adopted me, my father had another child, a daughter by a previous marriage. They were forced to be separated before he adopted me, and so I went most of my childhood not knowing I had an older sister; and when we finally met..." You sigh; it's already too late to prevent Homura from becoming like you, so all you can do is hope that Kirika doesn't meet the same fate as the Illya you knew in your own time. "Well, I'm just a little surprised the way history's repeated itself. I adopt a kid, and just like me her older sister is also from a previous marriage."
"You never told me you had a sister," Minako says, as she resumes her previous position of leaning up against your shoulder. "I want to hear more about her. Do you think she'd like Homura? Do you think she and I would have gotten along? Come on, tell me everything."
"Well, alright," you say. "her name was Illya, and she..."
[ ] Wat do?
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