"Gigi, here you are!"

Daneera shuddered at the nickname. "Hey Tryst." She turned from her locker with half a glare already in her eyes. It hadn't been a good day, not with Raiker pulling who knows what favors to do four hours back to back for a non-stop commentary on his latest soul-sucking masterpiece.

"That's the girl I wanted to talk to. About Sharaka's phoenix?"

Daneera's tensed instantly. She had said-!

"Oh, nobody tattled. Don't worry, Gigi, Sharaka trusts me even if you don't. I'd eat my own liver before backstabbing her." Then for a split second Tryst's impish smile twisted in a way that make Daneera's hair stand on end. "It looks expensive, so it's a gift. When I asked, she said she couldn't tell. Couldn't, not wouldn't. I hit Aloise, and she was weirdly tight-lipped. Then I ambushed Beryl and brought up the matter with a few names to cross them out. You were one of the last leads but you up and outed yourself, didn't you?"

Daneera glared at her openly. Tryst and Sharaka were very close, but for the life of Daneera she couldn't see what her friend saw in the devilkin. "So?"

"Oh relax, Gigi." Tryst rolled her eyes and raised two fingers. "One, I look forward to bonding with you over our shared love of stuffing."

Daneera blinked, confused, then it hit. She deflated with a groan. That was not a thought that wanted to connect forever to her stuffed anim- ugh.

Tryst cackled. "Two..." She put a hand on Daneera's arm and wrapped her tail across Daneera's back. "Thank you for giving her a reminder."

Daneera fought not to shake the devilkin off. "I... what?"

Tryst detached herself from Daneera, and the moment was over. "What are phoenixes famous for?" She winked at her, did a clean about-turn and left with her characteristic strut.

Daneera stared at her for a moment, sighed and returned to her locker.

“I’m never playing with you again, Foxy Boy,” Sharaka said, a barely perceptible rumble underneath her words.

Antine whimpered. “I said I’m sorry! I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“Of course, you didn’t!” Sharaka exclaimed. “How could you have? What you did shouldn’t even be possible!”

“Hey, guys,” Larasa said cautiously at the pair just leaving the school’s game room. “Is everything alright?”

Sharaka glared. “Would I be yelling if everything was alright?”

“What happened?” Morgan asked, standing beside his girlfriend.

“Antine broke my game,” Sharaka said.

“It’s not broken!” Antine exclaimed in desperation. “When we turned it back on, everything was fine, remember?”

“Good thing, too,” Sharaka said with a glare.

“What were you two playing?” Larasa asked, her interest piqued.

Sharaka held up a game case. “We were playing VITAL Eight: Nuclear Tenacity.”

Larasa’s jaw dropped open. “What? You have VeNT?!? How the hell did you get that? That doesn’t drop for another two weeks!”

Sharaka grinned. “It’s an advance copy. I won in as the secret prize in last weekend’s A:CoW tournament down at Jack’s Game and Tech.”

“Damn,” Larasa muttered. “I really wanted to play in that tournament, but I already had plans.”

“Well, for the best,” Sharaka said. “Saves you the heartbreak of losing to me in the finals.”

Larasa stuck her tongue out at Sharaka, who grinned back at her friend. Antine, scratching his head, said, “Wait, what about a cow?”

Sharaka and Larasa both rolled their eyes. Larasa explained, “It’s Amphesium: Crash of Worlds. It’s the hottest fighting game out right now.”

“Until this beauty drops,” Sharaka said, waving her copy of VeNT.

“So what happened, anyway?” Morgan asked again.

“Okay,” Sharaka said, stealing another glare at Antine. “So, I was getting an extra run in after my last class, trying to get the combo system down.” She stopped, then looked over at Larasa. “By the way, you are going to just DIE for this combo system. It’s sooooooo good!” She closed her eyes for a second, then shook her head and refocused. “Anyway, Antine comes in and asked if he could watch, so I thought it would be fun to play him. You know, to let him get a feel for the game.”

“You just wanted to crush somebody, huh?” Larasa asked.

Antine whimpered, and Sharaka shrugged. “So we start playing…”

“…And obviously you win,” Larasa interrupted.

“Immaculate Win,” Sharaka said grinning.

“Six of them in a row,” Antine added miserably.

“So, I started feeling kinda bad for him,” Sharaka said. “So in our next match, I let him get used to the controls for a bit, and he’s playing around, pushing every button, you know how it is with noobs.”

Larasa nodded, shooting a look over at Morgan.

“Anyway, once he seemed like he at least knew how to hold the controlled, I moved toward him to attack. Suddenly, he glitches to the other side of the screen!”

“I honestly don’t know how I did it!” Antine maintained.

“But that wasn’t bad enough, oh, no!” Sharaka said. “This guy takes two steps toward me, and falls through the floor! I try to jump back to the starting position, and the next thing I know, he’s glitched us into some kind of dev room!”

“Wait, really?” Morgan asked, suddenly interested. “Must be some kind of input overflow. That shouldn’t happen, especially in a fighting game. Antine, do you remember what combination of buttons you pushed?”

“Uh,” Antine said, then held up his paws and started moving his thumbs sporadically. “Something like this?”

“Anyway,” Sharaka continued, “the dev room or whatever it was was messed up. The timer was jumping around, not counting down, and moving made no sense. Sometimes we moved at a quarter speed, sometimes triple speed, and sometimes we just kind of warped around.”

“I was still mashing buttons,” Antine said dejectedly.

“Which probably made things worse!” Sharaka said. “Anyway, I finally go close to him and hit a sweet 12-hit combo. But for some reason, in the glitchy dev room, I took all the damage! I ended up beating myself just because this little fox found his way into someplace he shouldn’t have been!”

Antine slumped his shoulders. “That happens to me a lot.”

Sharaka laid a clawed hand on Antine’s slumped shoulders. “But like Foxy Boy says, when we restarted the game, everything was fine. But there’s no way I’m playing with him again!”

“How about me?” Larasa said. “Maybe I can give you more of a fair challenge.”

“You’re on, Firecracker,” Sharaka said.

“Can I watch?” Antine asked meekly.

“Sure,” Sharaka said, “as long as you don’t touch a controller!”

"**** hells, I can't even remember the last time I went 2-7 sober." Sharaka dropped the controller and leaned back, stunned. "I mean, at this point I'm not even mad. Your juggle is stupid good, girl."

Lia beamed at Sharaka.

Larasa poked Sharaka. "Nah, you're pretty mad."

Sharaka flipped her off. "Yes, but now I can tell that's no beginner's luck. The meek cutie put work in this game."

Lia blushed and tapped her thumbs against each other, hands still holding the controller.

"Or you're just **** washed up, Scales," Orida scoffed. "**** off, I'm playing the loudmouth next."

"Your funeral, Tack, literally," Sharaka offered the controller, than yanked it back as soon as Orida touched it. "If you lose, you're coughing up twenty bucks plus all my controllers you've killed."

Orida narrowed her eyes behind her black glasses. "And if I **** win?"

Sharaka stood up and dangled the controller before Orida. "Then we're even."

"**** yes," Orida snatched the controller and dropped on the couch beside Lia with a smug grin. "Prepare to be **** styled on, loudmouth."

Lia scowled at the kithkin, then turned to the screen with a grim expression.

Sharaka whispered something to Larasa, who sized up Lia and nodded.

A few minutes, several deafening curses and a sudden crash later, Sharaka casually tapped on Orida's shoulder. "That's four with that one. I don't take checks."

The target of Orida's curses shifted from the game to rotten luck and viashino sharks without breaking her stride. The kithkin left to scream into the quiet night.

Sharaka leaned over the couch to look Lia in the eyes. "There's this tag team tournament the weekend after this, with decent prizes in cash and game credit," she said nonchalantly, "and someone ditched me for her boyfriend - again. Wanna win the jackpot with me?"

Lia fidgeted nervously, but her eyes were wide with excitement.

Orida Vise took a deep breath as she stared at the door and swore in a whisper under her breath. She hated this place, hated everything about it. The walls were far too white, the lights too bright, and the sounds of beeping machines and low murmurs were everywhere. Orida had turned off her music, and the silence was deafening to her. She had lifted her dark glasses, and the world was too bright, especially for a place where people came to die.

The kithkin shook her head violently to discard the idea. She hated this place, but it was a sacrifice. A sacrifice for a friend.

Orida took a step toward the door and stopped again. Her breathing was heavy now. She was so far out of her element, so far away from where she wanted to be. That was happening a lot lately, she noted with a frown. Behind her back, the weight of the box she carried seemed oppressive, although it was not truly heavy. It was a different sort of weight, one that she was not used to carrying.

A few more steps brought her directly up to the door, and she could read the temporary nameplate that had been placed below the room number. A lump formed in her throat as she read the letters there. “S. Kozuti.” Without meaning to, Orida reached out with her Whisperweft, her black eyes swirling as she listened to the voices of the dead, terrified that the viashino’s voice would be among them. It was an irrational fear; Sharaka had been in hospital for weeks now and seemed to be in no immediate danger. But Orida hadn’t been to see her yet, and somehow still feared the worst.

Finally, Orida could delay it no longer. She took another deep breath, closed her black eyes, reached out, and knocked on the door. She heard a grumbling voice on the other side, and took it as an invitation to enter. Even though the other kids at school had described it to her, Orida was not truly prepared for what she saw. She tried to avoid looking, but her eyes kept drifting down to Sharaka’s missing left arm. Finally, she managed to look up and saw Sharaka staring directly at her.

“Took you long enough, Tack,” she said.

Orida cringed. “Sorry, Scales. It’s just…I couldn’t…I needed to get something first, and it’s meant…sacrifices. I wanted to come, but…”

Sharaka snorted. “I meant today, dummy. I’ve been smelling you out there for ten minutes.”

“Oh,” Orida said. “Yeah. This place, well, it ****ing sucks.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Sharaka said.

“Look, Scales, I…I can’t stay long. I just can’t. But…I brought you something. Something I owe you.”

Sharaka shifted her weight slightly to regard the kithkin. “What’d ya have in mind, Tack? Tryst is coming over later, and I wouldn’t want to make her jealous.”

“****ing hilarious,” Orida said, but she cracked a smile. “No, I got you this.”

Orida moved the box she had been carrying behind her back to her front, and walked over to hand it to Sharaka. It was a box that looked wrapped but wasn’t, and had a top that could be lifted off easily. Sharaka shifted again to a seated position and flipped the top of the box off – literally, rather than the way Orida might have flipped it off. The viashino reached into the box and pulled out a strange device.

“What the…?” Sharaka said.

“It’s a controller,” Orida said, staring at the device in her friend’s hand. “You know my dad’s into electronics and stuff, and he’s always trying to invent or reinvent things. So I asked him if he’d be able to make a one-handed controller. You know how he feels about those games, and he thought it would take too long, but he offered me a deal.”

Sharaka raised an eyebrow. “What now?”

Orida looked down at her feet. “Sacrifices had to be made.”

“Sacrifices?”

Orida’s voice got very quiet. “Dad said he’d do it if I started going with him to church on Sundays, and not bitch about it.”

“You’ve been going to church, Tack?”

Orida looked away. “I owe you four controllers. That’s one down.”

For a long moment, Sharaka looked down at the controller in her hand. It fit perfectly like a joystick, with a small strap that she was able to slip right into. The buttons were on the side with a stick on top where her thumb was. She knew it would never be as intuitive as the controllers she grew up with, especially playing with her subdominant hand. But, even the chance to play again…

“I’ll get you the other three, Scales,” Orida said. “Even if it will be a **** couple of months.”

Sharaka kept looking at the controller, getting more and more used to the feel of it. Finally, just when Orida thought that she couldn’t stand her friend’s silence any more, Sharaka grinned.

“How soon can you sneak a console in here?”