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Finally, after a year of saving money, Qibli was able to buy a VR headset. There was one game, he especially wanted to play with his friends. Beat Saber! He wanted to wreck all of them and show off his skill. One day at the Jade Academy, he asked his winglet to come over to his cave after school.
“Sure, why not.” Moon agreed.
“Are we having a party?! I looooooove parties! Should I bring some snacks?! Or maybe…” Kinkajou exploded with excitement.
“I don’t really have much to do after school.” Turtle exploded with his own version of excitement.
“As long as I won’t burn anything.” Said Peril. Qibli already thought about that. He asked Turtle after their talk to enchant his VR to be unbreakable. It was a very expensive piece of equipment, the SandWing didn’t want to risk it.
He didn’t have to convince Winter (since he was his clawmate) and because he already invited everyone before his talk with him, so Winter had to agree.
“Whatever” he murmured after 5 minutes of yelling and calling Qibli a hopeless idiot.
Everyone gathered in their cave in the afternoon. That’s when he grabbed his headset and announced “Who wants to play some Beat Saber?!”
“Oh, cool!!! It’s gonna be so much fun!” Kinkajou yelped and turned yellow.
“Great idea Qibli!” Moon smiled.
“You promised you won’t bring anything flammable!” Peril huffed.
“I already took care of that…with a little bit of help from our animus friend over here.” Qibli pointed at Turtle.
“Now we can all play together!” Turtle smiled at Peril.
“I don’t want to play your stupid games!” Winter hissed.
“Why not?! They’re really fun!” Qibli tried to convince him.
“Last time you had me play your game to laugh at my lack of experience, what was it called again?” Winter asked.
“I believe it was Dark Souls” Turtle said.
“Oh come on! Best Saber is not that hard! Come on, I’ll show you, so you all know how to play!” Qibli offered. He turned on his headset and started the game. He chose one of the first soundtracks and turned easy mode, to be able to tell them how to play. Of course, he ended with an “SS rank” and a full combo.
“Now play something hard!” Winter said. “I want to see how you’ll manage on a harder difficulty!”
“Challenge accepted!” Qibli chose the third soundtrack on a hard difficulty. He missed a few blocks here and there, but overall, he managed to finish with a decent score.
“Nice! I want to try!” Moon took Qibli’s headset.
“Do you have any snacks?” Peril asked.
“Oops, I forgot to put them on a table, give me a second!” SandWing ran over to his cabinet and grabbed three bowls, one with some fruits, one with fish, and the last one with some of the SandWing specialty, potato chips.
“Oh, what’s that?” asked Kinkajou.
“These are potato chips. Here, try one, they don’t contain any meat!” Qibli offered.
Kinkajou grabbed one chip and are it. “Wow! It’s good!” She said and grabbed some more.
Everyone tried some (Qibli noticed Turtle grabbing a huge handful), even Winter, but he bit a small piece and said “No, absolutely gross!”
“Let me help you with the headset!” Qibli helped Moon with putting on the VR goggles. She chose one of the DLC albums from her favorite band on easy mode. She managed decently, but she cut some of the blocks in the wrong direction. “I made it!” She raised her talons in the air.
“You did great!” Qibli gave her applause.
“My turn! My turn!” Kinkajou jumped over to get the headset from Moon. She chose the same song as Moon, but on normal difficulty. On her first try, she cut all the blocks in the wrong direction. On her second, she confused the colors. On her third, she failed because she didn’t crouch under the incoming wall. On her last attempt, she cut too many bombs. “Aaah! It’s so hard!”
“Oh come on! Even Turtle could do better!” Winter yelled.
“Hey!” Turtle huffed, but Winter ignored it.
“Try it yourself you brainless ice cube!” Kinkajou turned red and gave him the headset. He chose the same song, but on an even harder difficulty level. His start was pretty decent.
“You’re doing it all wrong! Your talons are too stiff!” Kinkajou said to him.
“Don’t distract me!” Winter hissed and missed a block.
“You have to move more smoothly! And remember to watch the colors!” Kinkajou said again.
“I said: DO NOT DISTRACT ME!” he bumped into a wall as he said that and groaned with frustration.
“I’m just giving you good advice!” Kinkajou huffed.
“Speaking of good advice, it’s good to not think while playing.” said Qibli.
“How can you not think, it’s impossible!” Winter cut another two blocks wrong.
“It is! And it works very well! Just go with the flow! Oh, and if you cut the blocks at a right angle and your arm moves a specific number of degrees, you’ll get a higher score!” Qibli added.
“HOW CAN I REMEMBER ALL THAT AND NOT THINK ABOUT IT!” Winter was furious and at the same time, a game over screen appeared. “SON OF A PENGUIN!!!” he tossed the headset on the floor.
“Winter, what are you doing?!” Qibli automatically ran over to check if the headset was alright.
“You said you enchanted it!” Winter reminded.
“Oh, you’re right! But still, you should not throw around any gaming equipment! It’s a very bad habit!” Qibli was still a little mad at his IceWing friend.
“Whatever.” He sat on a pillow and grabbed some of the chips that he called gross.
“Oh, is it my tur—” Turtle tried to say.
“Okay, my turn!” Peril ran over to get the goggles from Qibli.
“But no throwing it around this time!” Qibli said.
Peril put on the headset, chose a random song, and a...hard difficulty? She’s very confident about this, Qibli thought. To his and his winglet’s surprise, she did even better than Qibly. She finished with an “A rank” and almost full combo.
“Wow, you were awesome!” Moon cheered.
“This game is really fun!” Peril chuckled.
“You totally wrecked Qibli!” Kinkajou said and Qibli got a little jealous.
“Come on! She did only slightly better than me!” he defended himself.
“Guys, can I play now?” Turtle asked.
“If you’re jealous, why don’t you try to beat her? On expert mode maybe?” Winter gave him a challenging smirk.
It was true that he wanted to show off his skill. The problem was, that his skill finished there. He didn’t have so much time to practice and the expert mode was too much for him. “I didn’t want to show you my full power so you won’t feel bad.” He lied.
“We won’t! Come on! Expert! Expert!” Kinkajou encouraged him and Moon joined her. Now two dragons were shouting “Expert! Expert!”, Winter was still had his dumb smirk, Turtle was looking sadly at the floor and eating chips, and Peril offered him his headset and said, “Come on, show your skill master!”
“Pff. I'll beat you even with my eyes closed!” he grabbed the headset, chose the same song and an expert mode. To say that he did terribly is like saying that it’s a little windy in a sandstorm. He lost almost immediately after starting the song. He chuckled “I was just lost in thoughts, that’s all, give me one more time!”
One more time meant that he tried five times before answering Winter’s question “You’re not that good yourself, are you?” with a sigh and a “Yeah, I’m bad at this.”
“No, you’re not! You did pretty good!” Kinkajou tried to cheer him up “Most of us can’t play that good.”
“Hey! I could do better if everyone didn’t distract me!” Winter argued.
Qibli put his headset on the floor. “I was only trying to help!” he smiled.
“Help?! You were practically yelling weird commands in my ears!” Winter huffed.
“That thing about not thinking is actually a good advice! I wasn't lying about that!” Qibli said with defense.
“Yeah, sure. And Turtle is a master of this game!” Winter said.
“Hey, where’s Turtle actually?” Moon realized that he wasn’t sitting in his spot. They looked around and saw him with a headset on, choosing the fifth soundtrack.
“Oh, you probably want something else, this one is pretty hard.” Qibli said, but then, Turtle chose an expert+ difficulty.
“You shouldn’t, that one is seriously hard! It’s a bad idea!” Qibli tried to dissuade him from this.
“You’ll get completely destroyed!” Kinkajou yelled, but it was too late, Turtle already pressed play.
All of a sudden, the blocks started to fly at him at an enormous speed. To everyone’s surprise, he cut all of them in an instant. Everyone’s jaws dropped. More blocks were incoming, and Turtle’s arms were moving so fast, that it was almost impossible to tell if they were moving at all.
He was cutting all the blocks in perfect angles, his wrists moving extremely smooth, his face showing no emotion because of his focus. He’s in a flow Qibli realized.
Some walls stareted appearing. He dodged all of them in a flash. Finally the bombs. He impressively avoided touching them with his sabers while also cutting every block at a perfect angle and dodging the walls.
He finished with a full combo and an “SS rank”. He put down the VR headset while breathing heavily. All of his body was covered in sweat.
“*sap* *sap* You’re right…*sap*…This game is very fun! *sap* *sap*” he hardly managed to say.
“I thought you didn’t like to exercise!” Peril yelled.
“I don’t. But one of my brothers got this headset and I decided to give this game a try. He doesn’t like lending me his headset so it was my third time playing.” Turtle said.
“Third time?! You were so good as if you had been playing this game for years!!!” Kinkajou said.
“It looks like I have underestimated you.” Winter bowed to Turtle “Please forgive my ignorance.”
“Why are you bowing all of a sudden?!” Qibli asked.
“Because I’m clearly in a presence of a god! He’s way better than you!” Winter smirked again.
“Oh come on!” Qibli groaned.
A few hours later the party had finished. Turtle returned to his cave and tried to do his homework. It’s no use, I don’t have the energy to do it. I’ll ask Moon to let me write down her homework tomorrow.
He cleared his desk, opened his laptop, and put on his headphones. I have to play some more, he thought and continued playing Dark Souls from his last save.