The (Mis)Adventures of (Re)Becca Smellie

Chapter 10: The Great Gaming Debate

Earlier that same day on the other end of the city, the orange hues of the sunset shone through the large front window of House 1740 Villeneuve Street. Becca woke up as the it was setting on Aliva and the warmth of its last rays shone over her face and legs. Her head felt heavy, but she was most confused over how hard her bed felt.

Then she remembered this wasn't her bed.

She moved her VR headset to the top of her head and saw that she had been napping on the sofa. Emily rested beside her on the floor with her belly and legs in the air as her tongue stuck out to the side. Becca giggled and stretched, causing the little hot dog to wake up.

"I had the most bananas dream Emily! You know how Bella always tells me that I need to go out to make friends, and they won't just show up at our door? Well I dreamt that this chubby Cupid-looking florist came and- "

Becca stopped when she moved her head and saw the vase of roses on the coffee table beside her. That's when she realized, much to her befuddlement, that none of it was a dream. Everything was real. With a piercing squeak, she jumped out of the sofa and began to run around the house in search for any clues, calling out for 'Chubby Cherub' from the top of her lungs as she ran into the kitchen, outside to the backyard, upstairs, and finally downstairs to the workshop and bedroom. The noises of Ethereum Fantasy III were unmistakable as she reached the 'tinkerbox' and saw the lights shining at the entryway of her room.

Tying her now dried hair up into her pigtails, Becca walked over with a grin plastered on her face that only grew when she saw the 'Chubby Cherub' jumping and fighting his foes on the large screen that covered an entire side wall of her room. She snuck around him to sit on her bed and watch the action, mimicking his movements as he swung, chopped, kicked, punched, retrieved, and more. Her excitement watching him made her eyes glow with anticipation. There was only one tiny problem.

He wasn't very good at this game. Becca watched him for a good half-hour without saying anything, but he just couldn't get past one point in the Maze of Miroh no matter how much he tried. And she couldn't keep it in any longer.

When he ran into the same trick staircase and fell into a pit of lava for the fifth time, Becca made a suggestion by yelling over the game's music: "Try using your flight gear to go up the stairs without touching anything."

Boye, still using the VR headset and not seeing anything in his lateral angles besides stats and holograms of the Ethereum world, assumed the voice was coming from one of the characters meant to help him in his journey. He used the suggested trick and managed to get past all of the trick staircases in no time at all.

"Woohoo! I did it!"

"You did it! Good job Chubby Cherub!"

Boye's smile turned to an expression of confusion. Chubby Cherub? He paused the game to check if there was a glitch that caused a name change for the profile he was playing under, but the name was still the same: Giz_Wizarda.

"Why'd you pause?" he heard a familiar youthful and shrill female voice say. "You weren't doing that bad!"

Boye froze in place and slowly, oh-so-slowly, lifted the VR headset from his face to see Becca wide awake and sitting cross-legged on her bed, grinning from ear to ear as she looked at the screen then at him.

"Heya!" she exclaimed and jumped off the bed. "Need some help clearing the next level?"

As she approached, Boye grew increasingly nervous and his wings flapped under his disguise completely out his control. His mind raced as it terrified him with thoughts of her exacting her revenge on him, and what she was capable of doing to him after seeing those machines and robots in the workshop next door. With every passing thought and every little step she took, his wings fluttered more and more until they took off with him in tow.