AMVERY

When playing against Louise in DFA back in our original world, we were about even. We also had memory cards with our best characters on them, not with maxed out stats as that made the game less fun, but very well-rounded ones. Here, we both had the starter attributes, which put us similarly even to how things were before.

At least, I hoped so. Instead, a few minutes into our fight, I was getting my ass kicked pretty thoroughly. Each fighter had a health diagram that appeared on screen, showing our body and which parts were the most damaged with various colors. I could see this above the ring, and I was potentially wasting a lot of time checking my health instead of fighting back. My torso and legs were in the orange already. I hoped because the original game didn’t have any grievous injuries that I wouldn’t be able to have them as Louise mixed between knocking me over with her tail, jumping off the ropes at me, and getting me in leg locks.

I had to mount some kind of a comeback, so once I had broken free and Louise and I were in a standoff again, I used a reliable tactic with her. My eyes darted downward.

“So I noticed you kept your boobs the same size as before, that’s weird.” I said.

“Wh-what?!” Louise said, flinching and covering her chest up.

“Cmon, you went through that character creator too, we could do anything!” I grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to have a bit more, y’know, than you did back home?”

“What did…well you didn’t…either! You look the same! Shut up! Don’t talk about me like that!” Louise stammered.

It was kinda fun to get Louise flustered like that. It always worked when we were playing, too. Say something about her boobs or her hair or say her butt looked good and she stopped whatever attack she was doing mid-move. I was the only person that ever talked about her body like that, so she never saw it coming. It probably made me a bit of a creep, but whatever. I was on the Warrior’s Lot route, so I was just playing my character correctly. This also gave me the opportunity to kick her in her stupid face, which I gladly took, knocking her back against the ropes.

If this was anything like the game, I would have to string a lot of attacks together to build my dragon meter so I could shift to do a finisher. I wasn’t sure how move sets worked in this world; I was just doing stuff I thought was cool in the game. I basically just pictured the attack, and my body knew what to do (for the most part, there were still plenty of awkward trips and falls in my first match). Which was a weird feeling when you’re the type of person who can barely walk forward without tripping over yourself. Pretty soon, I had built enough momentum to do my finisher.

“Alright, hope you’re ready for this!” I said. I pictured my dragon form flying high above and slamming down on Louise in an impressive and violent display. But…

Nothing happened.

“Wait.” I said. “Um, how do you, shift into—”

Louise interrupted me with a quick slam that she turned into another leglock, the pain from that was too much to bear.

I gave up instantly.

The bell rang, and I flopped onto my back, staring up at the lights.

“And the winner is…Louise Lumi!” The Beez yelled.

I lost. I lost in a humiliating fashion in my first match.

Was I the total loser character in the end? I refused to accept that. Louise just had the advantage from all her sports is all. I wasn’t used to having an athletic body. I sat up, bracing myself for the sight of Louise cheering and celebrating, pandering to the crowd. What I saw was much worse.

This freaking girl had her hand held out for me to shake.

“Good match.” Louise said.

I smacked her hand away and left.

I’m admittedly a sore loser. Sometimes when a friend beat me in a game I’d have a little tantrum, but when Louise beat me, I’d go feral. I could feel the dragon energy really coursing through me as I raged my way to the backstage area. A short man with slicked back hair and a pink suit greeted me.

“That was a great first match,” he said. “Sorry you didn’t win, but as they say, you can’t win them a—"

“Uh huh, uh huh.” I said, walking past him. This might be something I’d regret later, but I was too angry to listen to the basic but charming dialogue of the Indicordian brand manager.

When I got really pissed, I’d get really physically awkward, and I hated that this trait followed me all the way here in the form of me knocking stuff over with my big fat stupid dragon tail. I made it to the shower area, knowing the arena layout by heart from wandering around in career mode for so many hours. Once I had rinsed off, I was a bit cooled off, and the less constricting casual wear helped me calm down a bit too. I still fumed for a bit by myself, grumbling and whining as I sat by myself. A bit later, someone else stepped out from the showers. It was Louise, who walked out wearing only a towel. She reminded me of something. There was a storyline with a lady manager where once you’ve unlocked her services, a PG-13 tier cutscene happens where the manager walks out of the locker room like that. I didn’t admit to anyone that it was one of my favorites and I made sure to get it every playthrough even though it was pretty gross overall, but Louise Lumi was not as great a sight as Miss Vine, so I had a different reaction.

“Put some clothes on.” I said.

Louise looked a bit sheepish. “I just wanted to say…” She said. “To, er, your prior statement, to offer a rebuttal of sorts.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Do you just want to gloat like usual?”

“I wanted to…” Louise said. “Just inform you that I did actually change a bit…just a bit! Up here.” She vaguely gestured to her chest. I guess the sports bra kind of smushed her business up there. I didn’t really care though and was confused as to why she was bothering to tell me.

“OK. Congrats. I was just saying that to make you mad.”

“I know. And it worked,” Louise said. “So I wanted to counter you. I’m playing along."

“Wasn’t beating me to a pulp enough?”

“You put up a good fight.” Louise said. She sat down next to me, being careful to not smack me with her tail. Our gazes both faced forward. “We should probably have a talk about this, shouldn’t we?”

“About how we’re suddenly in my favorite video game?” I asked.

“It’s my favorite too,” Louise said. “Our favorite video game.”

“I like it more than you do.” I said.

“I have the entire lore memorized.” Louise said.

“I unlocked every character, arena, furniture, and loading screen on five different memory cards.” I said.

“I have the demo disc with the cut characters.” Louise said.

“So do I, that’s not at all hard to get.” I said.

“It was! I lost like five auctions trying to!” Louise said.

“Yeah, you lost them to me.” I said.

“Whatever, that doesn’t matter!” Louise said. “We both love the game. I just think it may be important to note that…” She gulped. “We both probably died. I don’t remember dying, and I know that is bleak to think about, but we probably should accept it. Dying tends to be the impetus for otherworldly travels such as this.”

“Right, because those stories are so realistic,” I said. “I don’t remember dying either, and I don’t care. It’s just as possible we got kidnapped and hooked up to some VR machine and are held in the same facility. Probably made by aliens. Or we time traveled, and the future just happens to be this somehow. Or this is all a dream.”

“I don’t subscribe to your theories as usual, but the most important thing is that we’re lucky we ended up in this world,” Louise said. “And, if you do need someone to talk to, I offer my hand there.”

“I’ll find someone else first,” I said. “I’m sure we’re not the only ones that ended up in the game.”

“Sure, but in the meantime…” Louise said.

“Just let me think this out for a minute,” I said. “We only just started. And we still have the entire whole other part of the game to get to.”

“Right, well if you need any help in class, you’re on your own there.” Louise said.

An interesting thing about DFA is the school life mechanics in the career mode. Some speculation was had in the fanbase that the studio behind the game had multiple games in the works, a fighting game, a school life RPG, and a lore heavy fantasy game, and somehow decided the best option would be to merge them all together. Leading to a bizarre but glorious combination of dragon shifter battles with cool worldbuilding, as well as life sim cuteness. I would be able to wreak havoc on my opponents in battle and wear cute outfits and go to galas and the like. Did I mention DFA is the greatest video game ever made?

Anyways, I’d have class coming up soon.

“I didn’t ask for your help there before,” I said. “And I never asked for your help anyways! Why are you following me around?”

“Because it’s…just us right now.” Louise said. “I mean, there are others, but we’re the only ones we know for sure.”

“Again, I bet there’s more.” I said.

“But if there aren’t…”

“If there aren’t, then we’ll just have to make new friends.” I said. “I know I’m gonna make plenty of friends on my route.”

Louise sighed. “I cannot believe you chose Warrior’s Lot.”

“That’s what I always pick! It’s way more fun than being a dorky Knight’s Fate goofus!”

“I’d rather be good person.” Louise said.

“And it’s more fun to be a jerk in DFA!” I said. “And it’s not like I’m super bad, just cocky.”

Louise looked like she wanted to say something to that but held her tongue. Another annoying thing about her was her randomness in deciding whether she wanted to go on the offense, be a smug jerk, or just clam up and not say anything in response to me.

“We should probably stop now,” Louise said. “If we get heated again, it’ll likely lead to another fight. And we both need time to recover.”

“Yeah, sure…” I said.

I kept my head low as she got dressed. As she walked away, I felt like I wanted a better last word than “Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll beat you the next time I’m against you,” I vowed. “And every other time.”

Louise turned and smiled at me. “I look forward to it.”