Post by Trevor Engel on Sept 8, 2008 23:19:44 GMT 1
It was a Friday afternoon. Typically warm and partly cloudy, a slight breeze blowing through the city streets. Trevor's day at school was boring as usual and he couldn't wait to get out for the day. Could not wait so much so that he skipped his last three classes to catch the eleven o'clock bus to the mall where he would wander around for a while, picking up a few funds for his planned event. Of course, it wouldn't take him long to make enough cash to last him the afternoon and evening at the arcade plus a meal at the little hole-in-the-wall Thai food place he ate at all the time. But right now, his worries were on getting out of school, catching the bus and taking the uncomfortable ride over to the mall. It was a lucky break for him that Paragon had an open lunch, so that he could just decamp without having to climb a fence or stowaway in a transport like he had to at the military base he once attended.
The walk to the bus stop was utterly unhindered, faculty and student alike. Usually, Trevor would expect some resistance on the way out but his confidence and outward appearance would intimidate the random thug or teenage criminal that preyed on the less formidable. It seemed the kind of place where the weak could only perish and the strong were either getting stronger or being beaten into submission by those with more power. He inwardly smiled to himself at the challenges posed to him. First, he would have to find a way to make himself one of the strong becoming stronger and secondly find a way to keep it like that. Status really did not matter to him at all but it was all about the point of the matter; it was about having the strength and determination to prove himself to everyone else. Strength was everything to him and was all that mattered.
He arrived at the bus stop a couple minutes early, giving him time enough to lose his patience and begin pacing, throwing kicks and punches into the air before him as he fought an invisible opponent to keep his nerves down. The rumble of the public transit could be heard a few blocks away, the hissing of the brakes and suspension as well as the initial acceleration echoing down the street towards him. The bus stopped in front of him as he checked his watch. Two minutes late... he thought as he flashed his school ID and walked to the back to find a seat. The only seat that wasn't next to someone was the one just before the midway door, which he took. As he sat, he looked at the people around him. He studied them. The few that would make it all the way to the mall and get off with him were the least lucky of any that were riding because he knew exactly where their wallets were carried. The women would be left alone for the most part because it was generally too tricky to dig in someone's purse and get out in the time it took to bump into them and walk by.
This was a prime time to be in the mall for Trevor, especially for what he was planning on doing, because it was lunch hours for the people that worked and the mall was generally the fastest way to get food and go back to work if one did not want to eat at the local McDonald's or other fast food establishment, which business people usually did not. Trevor spent the good part of an hour just walking around the food courts and riding the escalators, "accidentally" bumping into people and just happening to come up with their wallets. He would dispose of the wallets on the floor next to a trashcan, making it look like he was throwing something away yet just simply dropping the wallet on the floor so that some good-samaritin could find it and turn it in to lost and found. Trevor wasn't really all bad or stupid for that matter, he didn't have any use for IDs or credit cards that could be traced so he simply just got rid of them. He was even smart enough to turn in a wallet himself every few times he went around like this.
By the time he came up with around $150, he took a detour from the arcade to stop in at Hong Thai, his favourite restaurant. He sat down and waited for the waitress to come take his order, which she actually didn't even have to ask him for. Like usual, he ordered Geow Grob for starters, Nua Yang extra spicy with a side of pad thai for the entrée, and a pot of tea to drink. He could have just said "the usual," but he was unsure whether or not this girl was competent enough to remember their most regular customer's usual meal. He was glad for the small pleasures in life, the small things that kept him sane for the most part. His food arrived with considerable and surprising timeliness and he enjoyed the well-cooked Thai food whole-heartedly, enough so that he was glad to leave a nice big tip of other people's money. He left in a direct beeline for the arcade, prepared to release some of the week's small frustrations on the virtual characters.
He blew twenty dollars straight away on coins for games and he went right for the laser-guns. He flew through the levels as quickly as anyone possibly could, the first few rounds or levels being much slower having to get used to the shoddy calibration of the machine. I should get a job here just to calibrate these fucking things... he thought to himself as he blew away militant zombies and soon thereafter switching machines to gun down terrorists and factional extremists. The sounds of the guns were terribly unrealistic and were too far on either side of the spectrum of toned down or over-dramatized. But it was good enough for the general populace which he assumed had never even seen a real M16 or MP5A4 up close, let alone heard one fired. After having taken out all the zombies, extremists, or a combination of the two, he went on to the superbike racing. Every time he raced, there was a deep longing for his own Honda CBR1000, that longing bubbling up and becoming a certain kind of rage that just simmered at his lack of means of getting one -- short of stealing it, of course.
After he got his fill of racing, he finally got to his main goal -- the fighting games. By now, school was out and here he would start off the fighting games with SoulCalibur, using a select two characters -- Mitsurugi and Kilik -- against whomsoever would think themselves good enough to challenge him. Needless to say, he only met one or two people that even stood a chance of keeping up with his relentless assaults; though of course, the people who faced him most likely didn't play as often as he did. He would eventually get over to Mortal Kombat, using Noob Saibot and Subzero to deal out carnage and death where he could before finally going over to Tekken.
Tekken was a game he was fairly familiar with, using anyone from Yoshimitsu to Eddy Gordo and being able to hold his own fairly well, but this afternoon turned evening wasn't his day. The Tekken machine was running smoothly and all, but the controls had soda or something spilled on them and they were sticky. This proved to be quite the challenge, especially trying to fight against the computer on hardest difficulty. The more Trevor's determination set in, the more anger fueled his actions. Eventually, he became so perturbed that he began to violently punch the screen with his right hand and kick the side of the faulty machine. The more his fist made contact with the hard glass and splatterings of blood from his knuckles came to stain the screen, the more pleasure he got from it and the more strength he put into each strike until the glass shattered. By that time, a crowd had gathered around this raging young man and mall security was called by the owners. As the rent-a-cops walked in, Trevor was already on his way out; they made the mistake of saying something to the effect of, "And don't come back," to him.
He ended his mall visit for the day by breaking that security guard's nose and walking out with another two guards, tazers at the ready. By this time of day, the sun was already beginning its final decent down behind the cityscape and the air had cooled enough to allow Trevor's stressed mind a little room to breathe. The blood, both his and from the security guard's nose calmed him too; it was almost as if shedding blood was how his rage was quelled.
The walk to the bus stop was utterly unhindered, faculty and student alike. Usually, Trevor would expect some resistance on the way out but his confidence and outward appearance would intimidate the random thug or teenage criminal that preyed on the less formidable. It seemed the kind of place where the weak could only perish and the strong were either getting stronger or being beaten into submission by those with more power. He inwardly smiled to himself at the challenges posed to him. First, he would have to find a way to make himself one of the strong becoming stronger and secondly find a way to keep it like that. Status really did not matter to him at all but it was all about the point of the matter; it was about having the strength and determination to prove himself to everyone else. Strength was everything to him and was all that mattered.
He arrived at the bus stop a couple minutes early, giving him time enough to lose his patience and begin pacing, throwing kicks and punches into the air before him as he fought an invisible opponent to keep his nerves down. The rumble of the public transit could be heard a few blocks away, the hissing of the brakes and suspension as well as the initial acceleration echoing down the street towards him. The bus stopped in front of him as he checked his watch. Two minutes late... he thought as he flashed his school ID and walked to the back to find a seat. The only seat that wasn't next to someone was the one just before the midway door, which he took. As he sat, he looked at the people around him. He studied them. The few that would make it all the way to the mall and get off with him were the least lucky of any that were riding because he knew exactly where their wallets were carried. The women would be left alone for the most part because it was generally too tricky to dig in someone's purse and get out in the time it took to bump into them and walk by.
This was a prime time to be in the mall for Trevor, especially for what he was planning on doing, because it was lunch hours for the people that worked and the mall was generally the fastest way to get food and go back to work if one did not want to eat at the local McDonald's or other fast food establishment, which business people usually did not. Trevor spent the good part of an hour just walking around the food courts and riding the escalators, "accidentally" bumping into people and just happening to come up with their wallets. He would dispose of the wallets on the floor next to a trashcan, making it look like he was throwing something away yet just simply dropping the wallet on the floor so that some good-samaritin could find it and turn it in to lost and found. Trevor wasn't really all bad or stupid for that matter, he didn't have any use for IDs or credit cards that could be traced so he simply just got rid of them. He was even smart enough to turn in a wallet himself every few times he went around like this.
By the time he came up with around $150, he took a detour from the arcade to stop in at Hong Thai, his favourite restaurant. He sat down and waited for the waitress to come take his order, which she actually didn't even have to ask him for. Like usual, he ordered Geow Grob for starters, Nua Yang extra spicy with a side of pad thai for the entrée, and a pot of tea to drink. He could have just said "the usual," but he was unsure whether or not this girl was competent enough to remember their most regular customer's usual meal. He was glad for the small pleasures in life, the small things that kept him sane for the most part. His food arrived with considerable and surprising timeliness and he enjoyed the well-cooked Thai food whole-heartedly, enough so that he was glad to leave a nice big tip of other people's money. He left in a direct beeline for the arcade, prepared to release some of the week's small frustrations on the virtual characters.
He blew twenty dollars straight away on coins for games and he went right for the laser-guns. He flew through the levels as quickly as anyone possibly could, the first few rounds or levels being much slower having to get used to the shoddy calibration of the machine. I should get a job here just to calibrate these fucking things... he thought to himself as he blew away militant zombies and soon thereafter switching machines to gun down terrorists and factional extremists. The sounds of the guns were terribly unrealistic and were too far on either side of the spectrum of toned down or over-dramatized. But it was good enough for the general populace which he assumed had never even seen a real M16 or MP5A4 up close, let alone heard one fired. After having taken out all the zombies, extremists, or a combination of the two, he went on to the superbike racing. Every time he raced, there was a deep longing for his own Honda CBR1000, that longing bubbling up and becoming a certain kind of rage that just simmered at his lack of means of getting one -- short of stealing it, of course.
After he got his fill of racing, he finally got to his main goal -- the fighting games. By now, school was out and here he would start off the fighting games with SoulCalibur, using a select two characters -- Mitsurugi and Kilik -- against whomsoever would think themselves good enough to challenge him. Needless to say, he only met one or two people that even stood a chance of keeping up with his relentless assaults; though of course, the people who faced him most likely didn't play as often as he did. He would eventually get over to Mortal Kombat, using Noob Saibot and Subzero to deal out carnage and death where he could before finally going over to Tekken.
Tekken was a game he was fairly familiar with, using anyone from Yoshimitsu to Eddy Gordo and being able to hold his own fairly well, but this afternoon turned evening wasn't his day. The Tekken machine was running smoothly and all, but the controls had soda or something spilled on them and they were sticky. This proved to be quite the challenge, especially trying to fight against the computer on hardest difficulty. The more Trevor's determination set in, the more anger fueled his actions. Eventually, he became so perturbed that he began to violently punch the screen with his right hand and kick the side of the faulty machine. The more his fist made contact with the hard glass and splatterings of blood from his knuckles came to stain the screen, the more pleasure he got from it and the more strength he put into each strike until the glass shattered. By that time, a crowd had gathered around this raging young man and mall security was called by the owners. As the rent-a-cops walked in, Trevor was already on his way out; they made the mistake of saying something to the effect of, "And don't come back," to him.
He ended his mall visit for the day by breaking that security guard's nose and walking out with another two guards, tazers at the ready. By this time of day, the sun was already beginning its final decent down behind the cityscape and the air had cooled enough to allow Trevor's stressed mind a little room to breathe. The blood, both his and from the security guard's nose calmed him too; it was almost as if shedding blood was how his rage was quelled.
