Chapter Text
On the way out of school with a chatty Selene and an annoyed Gladion, Lillie’s attention was caught by unfamiliar technological sounds coming from the library.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot that was today!” Selene realized, beckoning the two over. “Come on! You two only act like teens so much - I wanna show you some stuff.”
Upon entering, she saw Kiawe and some other boys and a few girls playing a video-game on an old CRT TV inside.
“There’s a game club here?” Gladion asked.
“Games?” inquired Lillie, tilting her head. “Oh, like the TV games Mr. Guzma plays with that piece of technology I thought was a remote? Instinctant? He gets awfully frustrated with it sometimes…”
Selene narrowed her eyes. “Does he get violent? I know he’s got a heck of a mean streak.”
“No, he’s never hit me,” Gladion answered, before pausing. “Lillie, has he hit you? Or Plumeria?”
“N-No, I promise!” Lillie stammered out. “I’d tell you.”
“I know you would,” Gladion said, breathing out a sigh of relief. Plus, he internally mused, if either of them did, I’d borrow Sunne’s amulet and kick their asses for it.
“Oh, aloha!” Kiawe called, receiving a shush from the librarian. One whispered sorry later, he explained, “Mr. Vikander is letting us use the library for a gaming tournament. Selene, you’ve played Sakurai Strike, right? Sophocles has been creaming all of us…”
“Sweet! Yeah, I’m down!” Selene chirped. “I haven’t played in a while, so I needed to get some rust off anyway.”
Sophocles Māmane, a short blond, scratched the back of his head humbly as she took a seat next to him. “I’m only the best in school because I’m better than Kiawe. He’s sorta seen as a roadblock in the club - if you can’t beat him, there’s no way you’ll beat me.”
Lillie smiled and took a seat to watch Sophocles’ Venuss beat Selene’s Lukeeta like she owed him money.
Three curbstomps later, Selene groaned and passed the controller back to Kiawe. “Awww, man! You’re good, Sophocles! Mrs. Burnet’s still going easy on me, if I’m losing to you.” She looked over at Lillie. “You played this game before? We could always do doubles.”
“No, but I want to try! I’m a fast learner, I promise… can I?”
“Oh, a noob?” Kiawe remarked. Receiving withering glares from Gladion and Selene, he amended, “I don’t mind! Jeez, sorry…”
“Of course you can!” Sophocles assured her, covering for his best friend. “If you’re just starting, pick Huggill. He’s great for beginners.”
“Okay…” Lillie said as she carefully selected her character and listened to Sophocles’ explanation of the basics.
“By the way, team-attack is on,” Selene told her. “So try not to hit me by accident.”
“I’ll try…”
Since Sophocles was much better than the casual player Selene and the novice lass Lillie, he’d agreed to 2v1 the girls. Selene did most of the fighting; meanwhile, most of Lillie did was jump up to the top and then Bouldrop down onto the stage; she was barely even able to recover, which she only learned from watching her ally and opponent.
“If it’s any compensation, you’re still doing better than most beginners,” Sophocles commented. “Most of them can’t even recover.”
“Umm… thank you…?” Lillie attempted to focus on her game-play, but with so many moves being thrown around at once, she could barely keep up. She got the hang of recovering quickly enough, but fighting was another matter.
Eventually, Sophocles managed to take Selene’s last stock, and Lillie had one left, so she couldn’t share a life with Selene.
“Come on, Sophocles! You can do it!” Kiawe called, nose in between a page of Calm City, the book he’d checked out.
They say the most frightening opponent, to a master of any sport, is not those around their skill level, but the completely untrained rookie who doesn’t know what they’re doing and will seldom do what they “should do” as a master would.
It was a sufficient explanation for why Sophocles was struggling to take Lillie's last life.
“Are you trying to time me out?”
“I’m just jumping!” Lillie squeaked.
Intrigued, Kiawe put a bookmark in his book and went to go watch.
Sophocles finally managed to catch up to Lillie’s character, and in a stroke of fate, she landed an up-air in a trade with his back-air. If it wasn’t for the few seconds afforded to him by Lillie’s Star K.O. animation, he might have lost, but Lillie was defeated horizontally and he wasn’t.
“Did I lose…?”
Selene threw her arms around Lillie. “Yeah, but you were great! You came neck-and-neck!” Turning to her opponent, she lightheartedly teased, “Jeez, Sophocles, were you throwing? How’s it feel to win and still need to git gud?”
Sophocles glared at him. “H-Hey!”
“Talk about the tragedy of Sophocles,” Gladion snarked, attempting to show support and pride for his sister.
“I picked that name myself, you-” Inhaling sharply, Sophocles shot up from his chair and stormed off.
“You guys shouldn’t have done that,” Kiawe hissed.
“Yeah, maybe we did lay it on a bit thick,” Selene murmured.
“Not just that!” Kiawe snapped. “Remember what happened to me last week? When I got pissed off?” On cue, he received another shush from the librarian.
Selene, Gladion and Lillie blanched.
“Go, now,” Kiawe ordered, voice urgent. “I’ll go and see if I can calm him down.”
While the three left the room, Lillie and Gladion heard Sunne whisper, “That was poor judgement. I’m with Kiawe on this one. Be careful about how people seem to feel.”
Gladion grew visibly guilty. “I didn’t think…”
“No,” Sunne cut in, every bit to impart wisdom upon Gladion rather than berate the boy, “no, you didn’t.”
“Please don’t be angry at my brother,” Lillie whispered as they exited the school, not noticing Selene had split from them.
“I’m not angry, Lillie, I promise,” Sunne said, soothing as the sun was warm. “I am disappointed by how he and your friend chose to act, but you’re still adjusting to the threat Parasite poses, and beating ourselves up over causing a welification is only going to make things worse. Gladion made a mistake, but we’ll rectify it.”
Gladion nodded. “Right… what can I do to help?”
“There is nothing you can do to take back what was lost from you,” Parasite remarked, tone picturesque of compassion and concern. “Your reputation, trashed by some little brat who didn’t even win?”
“It’s not her fault,” Sophocles admitted, though the magic of Uttu’s Nebulous was kicking in. “I’m not angry at her…”
“Then what of those who mocked you? Stuck you like a pig with barbed words, sharp as an iron blade? I can grant you the power to claim revenge on them - all I need you to do is claim the amulets of Sunlight and Moonwing. How does the idea of striking them down yourself sound… Electrogue?”