"So how does 'sports' work in like, immersive mode?" Lindsey asked as she pushed in the 'Immersive' button on top of the game machine. She wasn't particularly thrilled about the prospect of playing an actual sport. She may have been a cheerleader but that was because it was fun and because it looked good when she had been applying for the sorority. They may have been a little less 'stereotypical' to some other organizations, but Gamma Upsilon Rho Lambda still had it's hang-ups in regards to traditional gender roles.
The big black button finally locked into place with a click and there was a metallic buzzing sound before the game boomed "SPORTS: IMMERSIVE MODE CHOSEN. PLAYERS CHOOSE THEIR AVATARS. PRESS START TO BEGIN"
"Ugh, doesn't this thing have a volume control!?" Eugene winced as the horribly distorted voice rolled over the group again.
"You need to come to more games, dude. You get used to loud noises" Peter shrugged as he sat on the edge of the couch, his foot tapping in excitement. And here he thought Judy's whole 'let's get Eugene and Lindsey together!' plan was going to be boring. He wasn't sure what this weirdo machine was going to do, but it was still sports, right?
That was when a bitter, burning smell began to fill the dorm's common room.
"Oh no! Did it short out?" Judy cried as she pinched her nose shut as the stink tried to invade her nostrils. Eugene and Peter did the same thing, while Lindsey, while clearly not enjoying the smell, wasn't alarmed by the tiny smoke trail rising out of a tiny ventilation port in the side of the outrageously detailed machine.
"Nah Ju-Ju, this is what a 3D printer smells like!"
"No way, there's no way something this old could have one of those in it!" Eugene said, leaning in close and taking out his phone, flipping the flashlight on as he tried to peer around at the darkened interior.
"Yeah huh! 3D printers existed in the 80s y'know! They were just, like, SUPER big and totes rare. And I've NEVER seen one this small! Genie, you could be sitting on something you could sell to like, the tech lab or something!" Lindsey, said, pressing her face in close to Eugene's as well as she was and had been DYING to take the machine apart and look at all the neat custom analogue tech. That was what she loved about old machines, they were always different! Always new! Now everything was so software reliant and standardized. It made making some money on the side building rigs for people easier, but Lindsey definitely missed the days back in Seattle where she'd find old retro-tech and take it apart and build new stuff with it.
Meanwhile, Eugene simply tried not to start stuttering again as he felt the sorority girl's smooth cheek-flesh rub against his own.
And then with a loud DING, a tray slid out from the side of the game console, and in it was a pile of highly detailed plastic figures of a variety of colors (even beyond that of Lindsey's own rainbow-filled locks), and all of them were sports-related. In the center of the mass of figurines however, was a small stand that held what was clearly a red football player, a large blue pom-pom, a strange yellow figure that was some kind of mascot, and...a green water bottle?
"SEE! Even the game wants us to play football!" Peter practically squealed as he reached forward to grab the red piece, only have Judy bat away his hand.
"Don't you dare, mister! You've been a butthead this whole time, so as of now I am officially banishing you from making choices for us!" Judy fumed, planting a black-tipped finger on the (admittingly hunky) chest of her boyfriend and pointing to the far end of the couch.
"Aw, but Jude-"
"NO BUTTS! and if you can't play nice, you won't get mine either" Judy said with a indignant huff, crossing her arms across her substantial chest and sticking her nose in the air, much to the delight of Lindsey who broke out into a fit of giggles while Eugene just looked away out of politeness, choosing to instead inspect the other figurines in the tray.
There was an abundance of them, all nicely arranged into individual sections that were clearly labelled. The one with the basketball and, well, the lanky figure in the jersey shared a slot with another set of pompoms, this time yellow, and a green mascot. There was one with a baseball player holding a bat, a glove, a baseball, and then finally some kind weird...cage helmet looking thing?
'Pete probably know what it is' Eugene thought with a shrug as he ignored the rather comical domestic antics that were taking place on the couch, egged on by Lindsey. There was another one for hockey, soccer, boxing, even wrestling! In fact, this tray wasn't even all there was to select from! Eugene noticed the small seam in the plastic and gave the metal tray a soft shake and felt his eyes go wide as the tray jostled softly backwards, revealing ANOTHER tray full of colored figurines, all assigned to a sport! Eugene leaned back and grabbed the box lid, the piece of compressed cardboard somehow containing all the information they needed to know how to play the game. He scanned the rules again and then found more text hiding on part of the box he thought had been scraped off.
'Morphmanji tokens are one of the most important aspects of the game. Choosing a token and inputing the information into the console will act as your game-type selection, as well as determine your avatars for the game. Choose carefully, once a game is started, new avatars CANNOT be obtained!'
"Wow..." The overweight geek said, drawing attention away from a rather emasculated looking Peter that was currently cartoonishly pinned beneath Judy's butt and back to the game.
"Oooooh, whatcha find there, Genie?" Lindsey cooed as she crawled from her beanbag where she'd spent thel ast couple of minutes laughing and instead plopped herself next to Eugene, making no effort at all to maintain social distancing as she LEANED into him and reduced the mostly eloquent nerd into a red, stuttering mess.
"I, um, uh f-found more, um, pieces if we wanna, if we wanna um, you know, play a different set of s-sports" He gibbered, his eyes flicking this way and that as he tried to focus on anything other than Lindsey's impossibly cute face.
'Ugh don't get a boner don'tgetabonerdon'tgetaboner' He thought frantically, and tried not to sigh in relief as Lindsey eventually turned away to inspect the pieces for herself as Judy and Peter untangled themselves on the couch.
"SELECT AVATARS AND PRESS START" The game unexpectedly buzzed once more, catching the young adults off guard. Eugene could have sworn it sounded...annoyed? Or maybe just impatient? But unless it was programmed like that, and the voice was certainly synthetic enough that it sounded like it came from an old Speak'n'Spell, there was no way it could be, right?
"Bleh, seriously do NOT like how loud this thing is" Lindsey grumbled, "So, like, what do we wanna play? Basketball, Baseball? Hockey? Oh what about this game with these cute horsies!" The skinny yet spunky sorority member reached into the second tray and pulled out game pieces that were clearly associated with Polo and showed them to the group.
"Bleh, horses stink. They smell like ass and they spit" Peter groaned as he continued to eye the football figurines.
After a riveting discussion which was momentarily paused so the group could get a handful of drinks and some light snacks to hold off the late afternoon hunger pangs, the students finally decided to play as...
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