Out of This World Gaming [~ read description]

Chapter 10: Cooperation

Somewhere in another part of the coastal city that was Arcadia, a certain trio lurks.

"I'm so bored! I wanna go home, already!" Stephanie shouted. It was a tone that was drawn out and bored, just like the young woman whom shaped her statement as such.

"Can it, would ya?" Ken had turned around swiftly to scold her, then looked in other directions before she would continue with a hushed voice. "We wouldn't have to come here if you didn't lose your experiment."

All of a sudden, her bored, distracted disposition turned to that of one with a more heated outlook, already on the defense. "My fault?" she glowered. "I'm not the one who didn't sedate her before she was set to be experimented on. Don't act like you didn't lose Iris like I lost Larkspur."

Saying that had lit a spark in Ken's very spirit. It took all of her willpower to keep herself from physically lashing out. "Maybe if you didn't leave the keys so close to her, we'd still be sitting pretty." There it was; Stephanie had a certain vacancy in her eyes that could tell anyone that her defense had failed to show up. With that, she turned her nose up at her. "You know it's Larkspur's fault, and by extension, yours."

"That's rubbish!" The more Stephanie trekked through her thoughts, the more she scrounged for any sort of defense. "Iris was the more cunning one and you know it. Talk about developer oversight."

"You're wrong, Stephanie. See, Iris can at least hold a proper code to kill yours and her project." Ken spoke as if she was also referring to Minako, who could only stand there and roll her eyes at another one of these squabbles.

Stephanie took in a sharp breath through her nose, like she held a mixed bag of exasperated calmness. "Don't make me laugh. Larkspur's the smart one, Iris is a ditz, and her experiment can't tell a bottle of booze from a bottle of water."

"Her, is right here and her, can be talked to." Minako bemoaned. She never looked back at the duo, training her focus elsewhere as if looking for something.

"Heh, sorry, sis," Stephanie crossed her arms over the back of her head and looked around at the boulevard. Compared to earlier sights and vistas of empty shorelines, this was shoddy by comparison. She even tried to start a game of punch-buggy with Ken to pass the time, but none of it stuck after a few attempts to break up the monotony. "Hey, can you tell Ken that she's wrong about Iris? I mean, think about it: she's just a child in comparison to a successful business woman like Larkspur."

"Shut up! Both of you!" Minako swiftly turned around and grabbed her sisters by their collars. "I swear, you two are pettier than the boss. We have work to do and we can't just stay here and sightsee." She dropped the girls on their backsides; her looming figure led Ken and Stephanie to embrace each other with dread.

"But why not?" Stephanie spoke up as she rose to her feet with Ken's hand in hers.

The taller of the trio sighed with irritation. "Steph, we can't take any risks. Who knows what our projects might be doing now. First, we're going to need to-"

Minako was interrupted by footsteps indicative of that of multiple people approaching. Approaching the trio was a group standing behind a girl with her hands on her hips, smirking, and standing next to her was a male with a smaller stature who looked almost like her, but didn't have the same expression of self confidence. Instead, he shrunk behind the woman.

"Move it or lose it. We've somewhere to be." Minako approached them, but she was shoved by the black haired young lady into her sisters. 

"Nobody speaks to me or my gang like that. Am I right?" The same female had spat on the pavement away from anyone before turning back to her gang. They all affirmed her threat.