Air Hockey
Chapter word count: 1990
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Entering, Airot was surprised by the inside; its layout was completely different from any other building he had been in.
It was an arcade—an arcade with a blatant medieval aesthetic. The place was also larger than it appeared from the outside.
The contrast between the medieval theme and the relatively modern arcade games was a sight to behold, especially compared to everything up to this point.
“Have you ever been to an arcade before?” Darc questioned.
“Yeah, not that many though. But I think I have been to a medieval-themed one once.”
“So, what’s your favorite game?”
“I… I’m not sure…” Airot pondered the question. “It’s just been so long.”
“No worries, we’ll just play all of them and see which one triggers your favorite memory,” Darc patted Airot on the back.
Polished wooden planks made up the entire floor, with smooth wooden pillars dotted around.
To their left was an open area with various generic arcade games, though beyond them seemed to be a separate room.
On the right side near the entrance was a path that led to a section resembling a tavern.
Passing by it, the smell of carnival food hit Airot’s nose. From popcorn to pizza to various roasted skewers and meals, he was tempted to go there despite having recently eaten.
Darc had to pull Airot to get back on track.
Going further in, they took a slight detour, separating from a set of armor stands leading to a doorway that divided sections of the arcade. Colorful banners hung from the walls to the side of the doorway, though they seemed meaningless.
They instead entered through a different doorway that was less grand but still adorned with needless decor.
‘This place is definitely bigger than the building outside.’
Darc continued leading them, weaving past people and rows of games to a clear path.
An amalgamation of noises can be heard as they moved: various clacking, retro beeps, exaggerated engines rivaled by horse neighs, sci-fi lasers, gunfire, explosions, and the clanging of metal echoed throughout.
Taking a look around, Airot could see a wide number of people enjoying themselves.
Due to the scattered nature of the arcade and various obstructions to his view, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact number of people here, but there were possibly a few dozen.
Finally releasing him, Darc pushed Airot to one end of a table then went to the other side.
“Let’s start off with something competitive, ey?”
Airot looked down at the table and took hold of the white striker before replying, “Air hockey, huh? Alright then.”
There was an attached scoreboard hovering above the air hockey table, which was divided into two sides, each having three dots.
Darc placed a puck down as the table turned on.
A fine clack was heard as the puck darted across the table, aimed diagonally to the side, ricocheting past Airot’s guard and directly into his goal.
One of those dots just lit green.
“I… wasn’t prepared,” Airot excused as he picked up the puck that was ejected to his side of the table.
“You won’t always be,” Darc replied, placing his striker at the left-hand edge of his goal, leaving the rest open. “Sometimes, you just have to accept that you were surprised.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Airot lined up his shot. “Since I’ll be the winner in the end.”
He shot the puck straight toward the open gap in Darc’s goal.
Swiftly parrying it, Darc returned the puck, bouncing it in a Z-shaped attack.
This time, Airot was able to counter it and send it back.
To his misfortune, the puck hit the edge of the side wall and then into the wall parallel to Darc, causing it to come back without Darc even hitting it.
Sending it back with a sharper ricochet shot, he hoped to score a point.
But Darc’s eyes had been following the puck, letting him block the attack and send the puck crashing straight into the side barriers rather than towards Airot, causing it to clash back and forth between the side walls near Darc.
Airot closely watched, but through the continuous movement of the puck, Darc made a sudden strike faster than Airot could perceive.
Before he knew it, the puck slipped by him and went into his goal again.
A second dot next to the already lit one glowed green.
“And that’s my second point, while you’re still at zero.”
Airot placed the puck back on the table while replying, “Hey, I’ll have a comeback. Just watch.”
“Oho,” Darc chuckled, “you can try. But some things were determined before they had even begun.”
Darc placed his striker in front of his goal, but left some distance between him. A show of confidence.
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He stared at Airot’s face, awaiting a comeback.
But without responding, Airot shot the puck to the side, which perfectly ricocheted into Darc’s goal through the space left open.
A dot lit up green on the other half of the scoreboard.
“You’re right, you know,” Airot looked up to meet his gaze. “It’s just that my comeback was the one predetermined,” he grinned, “not your victory.”
“That wasn’t the comeback I was looking for…” Darc placed the puck back onto the table. “But since you’re acting like that, I guess I should finish the game now.”
He fired the puck ahead, which Airot managed to block.
They proceeded to have a back-and-forth clash, sending the puck to each other with varying ricochets. Their battle just added more clacking sounds to the arcade.
Eventually, a score was made.
Darc aimed to parry the oncoming puck, but in the heat of the moment, he seemed to misjudge his own speed and undershot his swing.
The puck went past Darc’s arm and into his goal.
Airot’s second dot lit up.
“With that, we’re tied.”
Without replying Darc just placed the puck back and shot it straight immediately.
Not expecting a silent attack, Airot quickly went on the defensive and successfully parried it.
However, the sudden speed of it led him to perform a large arm swing, leaving a momentary opening to his goal.
Before resetting his placement, a clack was heard sooner than it should’ve been as the puck went straight into Airot’s goal.
Darc’s third and final dot lit up.
“What…” Airot looked at the table in surprise.
When Darc had fired the puck straight ahead, he threw his striker along with it.
Airot’s rushed defense could only send it straight back, which clashed with the thrown striker and into Airot’s goal.
The table lit up in two colors: Darc’s half in green and Airot’s in red.
“It’s my victory.”
Airot let go of his striker, leaned over the table, sighed, and defeatedly admitted, “Yeah, sure.”
The table turned off as Darc began moving away. He headed deeper into a row of games.
Their stop wasn’t far off, as they halted just a bit into the aisle.
“How about a race this time?” Darc offered, gesturing to some mounted horses.
They were designed like a racing game, specifically one with a tilting motorcycle; however, instead of a motorcycle, it was a horse.
“Ugh, I don’t like these,” Airot rolled his eyes.
“Aha, so we’ve triggered a memory. Tell me, what about it do you not like?”
“Mmm,” Airot pondered, “I dunno, they’re just hard, I guess.”
“So you fear difficulty? Why not give it a go to overcome that.”
“Nah, I’m sure I’ll pass. If you’re so bent on it, why don’t you play it then?”
Darc silently stared for a moment long enough to be noticed before replying, “Sure, I think I will.”
He hopped on the horse and reached for the machine in front, initiating the race.
As Airot had expected, it was a generic racing arcade game, just with horses slapped on.
Being the observer, he could watch Darc maneuver fairly well in the game, utilizing the reins to direct the horse. It seemed even the foot holders of the saddle had a function.
The race itself wasn’t too interesting or long, though. Darc finished quickly in second place.
“Lost to an A.I.,” Airot jabbed.
“You would’ve lost to all eleven of them,” Darc got off the horse.
“Nuh-uh, I would’ve been around the middle.”
“Still worse than me,” Darc bent over to the machine.
“Anyway, what’s next?” Airot turned to look deeper down the aisle.
“Straight ahead; we might as well have a little more competition,” he ripped out the tickets that had ejected from the machine.
Noticing the tearing sound Airot focused on the tickets, “Huh? Is that—”
“Yeah, it is. It’s an arcade, after all.”
“Well, what can we get for those?”
“We? You didn’t want to play; these are all mine,” Darc waved an end of the tickets in front of Airot.
“Hah, whatever.” Insulted, he moved on.
They reached the end of the aisle and were met with a row of games adjacent to a wall.
In front of them were some basketball-themed machines.
Darc motioned to them as he activated two of them. Airot opted in.
It was a simple game; they just had to throw as many basketballs into a hoop within a time limit as possible.
With multiple basketballs to shoot, the game proceeded smoothly, ending with 27 and 32 points to Airot and Darc, respectively.
The machine then ejected tickets for each of them. Airot gladly took his.
By the time he turned around, Darc was already waiting for him.
“None of these are triggering good memories for you, huh. Should we go to the kids section?” Darc teased as he began leading them once again.
“No need,” Airot followed behind. “You said we’d try all of them, so let’s continue doing that. I don’t have much to do anyway.”
“You say that but you ignored that horse race.”
“Well, it succeeded in bringing back a memory. I’d say that’s enough.”
“If you say so,” Darc walked through another open doorway guarded with knight statues. “If we’re gonna try all of them, then we should move to the main area,” he turned back to see Airot’s reaction
The chamber they entered was larger than the area they had been in.
The muffled arcade noises were now blaring loudly.
They passed a row of machines and were met with a short railing.
Looking over it was a dazzling view of a multi-layered arcade that definitely rivaled the library’s visitors.
The place was formatted like an upside-down pyramid, where there were rings that lowered down until the bottom floor.
They weren’t far, just a few steps down. A child could reasonably hop down without any harm.
The layers were also fairly sized, though a party might find it narrow.
The circular bottom was extra spacious and seemed to have the most multiplayer games, judging by the crowd.
Looking up, there even seemed to be two floors above their current position in the form of rings detached from the inverse pyramid. A design style reminiscent of the library’s, though on a smaller scale. It was still large in its own right, though.
There were banners, flags and torches hung up on the walls, railings and pillars of the place.
The last notable thing in immediate view was a series of arched bridges connecting to a single hovering platform above the center that then connected to the floor above. There was a similar platform for reaching the third floor.
“Ah…” Airot got lost in thought.
“A sparkling view, no? With all the neon and flashing lights.”
“Yeah… seeing this now definitely reminds me; I’ve been here before.”
“Have you now?” Darc asked, intrigued.
“Well, not ‘here’ here, obviously. But like, this style of arcade, I think I’ve been to a ‘Feudal Arch’ before.”
A smirk appeared on the edge of Darc’s lips, “So we really did trigger a memory.”
“I guess we did.”
“Well, let’s go trigger more,” Darc patted Airot, inviting him to follow.