Kill the Power Gamer

by Eric Vall

  “It’s about Hannah,” she sighed.

  My heart jumped up into my throat. Hannah must have told her about last night, and she probably wanted to confront me about it.

  This was a fucking nightmare.

  “What about her?” I asked as innocently as I could.

  “It’s about her attitude,” the blonde woman explained, and I swore my blood pressure dropped ten points. “This is only her second day, and she’s already treating me like … well … she’s not exhibiting proper employee behavior. I don’t know what kinda favors she’s been giving Darren, but she must be next-level if he’s making us keep her around.”

  My relief quickly turned to annoyance. Hannah wasn’t one of Darren’s play things. She got embarrassed from a kiss, so there was no way she would be willing to do all the messed-up, twisted things that balding asshole demanded.

  Hannah might have been a little rough around the edges, but she was an adorable flower deep down.

  “I haven’t really noticed anything wrong with her,” I lied. “Sure, she’s got spunk, but she really knows her stuff.”

  “I’m sure she does,” Renee mumbled in a somewhat mocking tone. “I should have guessed you’d be on her side for this one.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked with a furrowed brow.

  “She told me about yesterday,” my manager laughed, and all of my fear returned to my mind. “About how you two went out on a ‘date’ and how she was threatened by me.”

  “Threatened by you?” I asked as I heard my voice raise into a near-falsetto. “Wh-Why on Earth would she be--”

  “You know exactly why,” Renee answered, and then she crossed her arms over her chest as her face turned into a scowl. “All this time, and you never thought to tell me? Is that why you’re always so damn weird when I’m around?”

  Great. Hannah was avoiding me, and Renee was confronting me about my secret affections for her.

  I’d really stepped in it deep this time.

  “I, uh … I always act like myself when I’m around you,” I tried to play it cool. “That part’s never changed.”

  “Oh.” Renee sounded disappointed, and then I couldn’t stop the next works out of my mouth.

  “Okay,” I admitted, “yeah, I, uhhh, have had a thing for you for a while.”

  “Okay,” she echoed as she pushed her lips together.

  “And I didn’t tell you because, well,” I sighed, “I figured a woman like you could never be into a guy like me. Plus we’re coworkers, and that would be weird.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Renee said, and then she cleared her throat and glanced around the aisle. “Look, Tony, uhhh, I’ve uhhh, kinda had a thing for you. Or at least I did. You are really cute, and super nice. But, I mean, it’s like you said. We work together, and you are a nice kid and all, but--”

  “You like me too?” I asked as butterflies began to dance in my stomach.

  “Well, yeah, but like I said, you are a nice kid and--”

  “I’m just a few years younger than you,” I interrupted.

  “Yeah, yeah, but, Tony,” my manager explained, “you’re a great employee and a nice guy … but you’re not really what I’d call ‘boyfriend material.’”

  In the back of my mind, I’d always worried this is what would happen. Now, it was coming true, and it felt like my world was crashing down around me.

  Renee must have seen the hurt in my face, because she instantly changed her tone.

  “I-It’s not you, it’s me,” she said. “Even though I work at an electronics store, I don’t really care about games, computers, movies, or any of that shit. Our interests just aren’t compatible, that’s all. Not to mention, I want to get out of here someday, you know? I have lots of ambition.”

  “And I don’t?” I growled.

  “Tony, you want to be a full-time Twitch streamer,” Renee said with a roll of her eyes. “I have bigger dreams than that.”

  “So, you have ‘real’ dreams,” I said flatly, “and you think I’m just a loser who sits around playing video games all day.”

  Renee didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Her expression and silence said it all.

  “I don’t want this to make things weird between us,” she finally sighed. “I do enjoy working with you guys.”

  I’d heard enough.

  “I need to get back to work,” I muttered as I turned around and stomped away.

  “Tony, wait … ” Renee weakly tried to console me, but it was too late.

  I walked over an aisle, but then I walked over another, and another, and finally I was on the other side of the store and trying to walk in a straight line while I glowered at my shoes.

  Then another pair of shoes were in front of my feet, and they moved to my right when I tried to step around them. Then they moved to my left when I tried to go that way. Finally, I looked up and stared into a pair of beautiful blue eyes.

  “Hannah?” I asked.

  “Hello, Tony,” she stated plainly. “Is something wrong? Your heart is beating quickly, and your skin is flushed.”

  “Uhh, heart?” I asked, but then I realized I had probably heard her wrong, so I took a deep breath and gave her a weak smile. “Nothing is wrong.”

  “Something seems wrong,” Hannah said as she looked over across the store toward Renee.

  The other blonde woman was staring at us, but as soon as she saw us looking at her, she ducked her head down and pretended to be taking inventory.

  “Everything is fine,” I said.

  “That woman is an idiot,” Hannah replied emotionlessly. “She doesn’t understand your abilities. If she did, she would be spreading her legs and begging for you to inseminate her.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but then my jaw just hung there as my brain chewed on Hannah’s words.

  It was the weirdest compliment I’d ever heard, but it most certainly was a compliment.

  “Last night ended weird,” I finally blurted out.

  “It did?” Hannah asked as her cold blue eyes bored into mine.

  “Uhhh, yeah? I mean, I kissed you and then you left.“

  “Was I supposed to stay?” she questioned with a tilt of her head.

  “Ummm, maybe? Shit. I don’t know anymore, but will you let me make it up to you? Maybe at the movies later tonight?”

  “Movies?” she asked. “Will we be alone?”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled. “Well, the theater will be dark, but there will be other people there. We can do dinner first, though.”

  She finally nodded. “Being alone with you fits into my plans, so yes.”

  “Great!” I chuckled happily. “What, uh, what do you want to see?”

  “You choose,” she conceded. “You know much more about these sort of things than I do.”

  “Then it’s a date,” I said as I shot her finger guns. “Tonight at eight?”

  “Tonight at eight,” she confirmed with a nod.

  I turned back around, and I had to keep myself from literally jumping for joy as I headed back toward my area.

  I had a second chance with Hannah. I just needed to make sure I didn’t blow it.

  Chapter 8 - Tony

  “Ahh, lunch time,” I said to myself as I pulled my brown sack lunch out of the break room fridge.

  The break room was empty, but then again, I was the only person who ever really brought my lunch in. Most everyone else would go out to grab something at a nearby fast food place. I had to save my pennies for future video game upgrades, though, so I couldn’t really afford such luxuries.

  I sat down at the long table, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes for a few moments. It was great to get some peace and quiet for a few minutes, and that was another reason I prefered to eat here instead of going out. I kind of wished I could turn the lights off and get a quick nap in, but that might be too hard to justify if Darren ever walked inside.

  I finally opened my eyes and focused on the TV mounted on the wall. I
t was playing Judge Judith, but the volume was muted. It had the effect of making her facial expressions seem even more extreme, so I decided to keep it muted as I opened my lunch bag.

  I pulled out my sandwich, but before I could unwrap it, I heard the door to the room open, and I stifled a gasp when I saw who had entered.

  Hannah.

  “Uhhh, hi?” I asked once my lungs got some air.

  “Renee told me to take a lunch break,” Hannah said flatly as she stood in the doorway. “I told her I did not require sustenance at this moment, but she insisted I ‘get out of her sight.’”

  “Oh, well that’s--”

  “I did not know where to go to take this lunch break, so she instructed me to go to this room and sit for an hour. I cannot wait to be done with her.”

  “Welcome to retail,” I snickered as I gestured for the beautiful woman to sit across the table from me, “but, all things considered, Renee is a pretty cool manager. I think you two are just uhhh, not getting along because--”

  “She is too stupid to realize you are a tactical genius,” Hannah sighed. “Of course, she is only human and weak.”

  “Human and weak?” I repeated. It was crazy sometimes how Hannah talked. Like she was a robot or something. Her mother must have been crazy strict.

  “Ahhh, I have made a verbal mistake.” Hannah half-smiled, but then she moved to where I still pointed and sat across from me. As she walked, I couldn’t help but watch the way her legs moved and her perfect ass pressed against the cloth of her pants.

  “Oh, no worries,” I laughed, but then the blonde beauty sat down and stared at me with her ice blue eyes.

  “Soooooo, you didn’t bring a lunch or anything?” I asked after a few seconds of her staring me down.

  “No,” she answered. “I am not hungry.”

  “You want to share mine?” I waved my sandwich. “It’s just PB and B, but it’s my favorite.”

  “PB and B?” She looked down at my hand, and her eyebrows narrowed a bit.

  “Peanut butter and banana!” I laughed. “It’s my favorite. You’ve never had it?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “You’ll love it,” I said as I quickly unwrapped the sandwich, ripped it in half, and gave her the bigger part.

  “I do not want to take your food, Tony,” Hannah said as she waved her hands and leaned away from me.

  “It’s totally fine,” I chuckled. “I can’t just sit here and eat while you don’t. Come on. You gotta eat something for lunch. You’ll really like this. I promise.”

  Hannah stared down at the offered sandwich for a few more moments, and then she let out a small sigh, and her shoulders slumped a little.

  “Very well,” she whispered as she took it from my hands.

  My heartbeat quickened a bit when her full lips parted, and I held my breath when she took a small bite of the half-sandwich. I liked to make them with way too much peanut butter and way too much bananas so the bread almost couldn’t hold the whole thing together.

  “Well?” I asked after she’d chewed and swallowed her first bite.

  “It … it … I like it.” Her eyes opened wide with obvious surprise, and then she took another bite.

  “See?” I laughed. “I knew you would.”

  “Yes,” she mumbled around a mouth full. “Your nut butter and banana mixture tastes wonderful on my tongue. Thank you for giving it to me.”

  “Uhhh, yeaaaaahhh,” I coughed and tried to hide my blush by raising my fist to my mouth. She obviously didn’t understand the double entendre, but that just made her that much cuter.

  “It is very thick and sticky in my mouth,” she continued with a soft moan. “The mixture is coating the back of my throat.”

  “Uhhh,” I cleared my throat as she moaned again with obvious pleasure, and then I squirmed out of my chair so she couldn’t see the bulge in my pants. “Let me get you some water.”

  I rushed to the sink behind her, grabbed one of the clean cups from the cabinet, and then filled it up from the drinking water spigot. Then I set it on the table in front of her and returned to fill up my own cup. By the time I returned to my chair, my dick had relaxed a bit, and I didn’t think she’d noticed what effect her words had on me.

  “Thank you for the water,” she muttered as she took a small sip.

  We ate in silence for another minute, and when we were both done, I reached my fingers into my bag and pulled out the next item: Oreos.

  “Please tell me you’ve had these before,” I said as I opened up the bag and passed one to her.

  “No.” She raised a blonde eyebrow as she took one. “It is a cookie?”

  “Yep,” I confirmed. “I don’t have any milk, but you’ll still like it.”

  “Hmmm,” she muttered before she carefully took a bite.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “It is very good,” she agreed. “Perhaps a bit too sweet for me. The nut and banana sandwich has a better blend of sweet and salt.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “PB and B sandwiches are the best, but I’ll still split these Oreos with you, if you want more, that is.”

  “Sure,” she said with a single nod, and then I set the bag of cookies on the table between us so we could share.

  Hannah ate at the same pace as me, and we soon killed the bag of Oreos. Then she glanced at the brown paper bag where the rest of my lunch was and gave me a slight smile.

  “Do you have anything else?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t hungry?” I teased.

  “The sandwich and cookies were excellent,” she admitted. “I did not require food, but my body was operating at a slight calorie deficit.”

  “Sometimes when you start eating something delicious, you start to get hungry,” I laughed as I reached into my bag. “No more fun stuff, just some carrots, celery, and an apple. There aren’t any knives in here though, so we can’t really cut the apple in half.”

  “Give it to me,” she said as she extended her hand toward me.

  “Uhh sure.” I put the apple in her hand, and then I let out a gasp when she put her thumb into the stem area, wrapped her other hand down across its body, and split the apple in two as easily as I would open a can of cola.

  “Now, it is in two,” she said as she passed me one of the apple halves.

  “Holy shit, how did you do that?” I realized my mouth was hanging open, and I closed it with a clicking sound of my teeth.

  “I have superior strength and analytical abilities to help me destroy objects,” Hannah said as she shrugged her shoulders.

  “You mean you are a fucking badass,” I laughed and looked at the apple. “That’s crazy. You are really impressive.”

  “Explain,” she said as her eyes narrowed a bit.

  “Well, uhhh,” I started with a nervous chuckle. “Like, you are just really smart, and strong, and ahhh, well you know. Hey, we’ve got an old REGA System hooked up to the TV in here and a few games. You wanna play something together? We’ve still got fifty or so minutes for lunch.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said, “I will play against you in some games.”

  “Well, we don’t actually have any fighting games,” I apologized. “We just have some co-op games. I know you said you didn’t want to play like that, but there is this great game called Glittering GoldShip I think you’d love. It’s a really hard vertical-scrolling bulletstorm game. You actually need two players to beat it, but I’ve never found anyone good enough to get there with me.”

  “What is a bulletstorm game?” she asked as she turned toward the TV.

  “Each player flies a spaceship,” I explained as I set the apple half down, moved the cabinet under the TV, and started pulling out the controllers. “The view is top down, and there are dozens of bad guys on the screen who are shooting hundreds of missiles or bullets at the players. You have to dodge around the enemy fire while shooting back. This game is super hard, and no one at Carmichael’s has ever beaten it. Only a few pro-gamers have ever beat
en it, but they normally have to work with another pro gammer to make it happen. Those Twitch streams always get a ton of views, since it’s nearly impossible.”

  “And we do not shoot at each other?” she asked.

  “No,” I laughed as I held the controller out to her. “We both have to work together. Each ship has a few different attacks they can fire, sometimes one player has to shoot a bad guy with one type of attack while the other player hits the same bad guy with a different attack to break its armor. Other times one player has to defend the other player’s ship with the defensive shield fire type so they can safely return offensive fire. That’s something that also makes the game crazy hard. Both players have to be really awesome and able to play in sync with each other.”

  “On the same team?” Hannah asked as she stared at the controller I held out to her.

  “Well, yeah,” I chuckled.

  “With you?” she sighed, and then her eyes finally met mine.

  “Well, uhhh … ” I felt my heart start to sink into my stomach. She seemed to really like playing video games, but she didn’t want to be on the same side as me. Was that because she really didn’t like me? But then why did she want to go out to see a movie with me tonight?

  “I really should not,” she whispered, but then something flashed in her eyes as she stared at me. It was almost like she was pleading with me. For half a moment, she wasn’t the strong woman I thought she was.

  She seemed scared of something.

  “Well, what else are we going to do for almost an hour?” I said as I wiggled the controller in front of her. “You’ll love this game. Well, I mean, it’s super hard, and you’ll probably scream at it, we all do, but you know … Wanna give it a try with me?” I shouldn’t be nervous about the question, but my heart was racing in my chest again.

  I really expected her to say no.

  “Okay,” Hannah finally said, and then she reached out to take the controller from me.

  “Awesome,” I sighed with relief, and then I turned around to unmute the TV, started up the game system, and pulled up a chair to sit down next to her. “Okay, so there are six buttons on the controller. Each one does a specific type of shot. The top three buttons are offensive type shots that do more damage. The bottom ones are more defensive shots that can still do damage to the enemies, but … well, I’ll explain them a bit better when we start playing.”