by Eric Vall
“What about these trigger buttons?” she asked as she clicked on the shoulder buttons.
“Those activate the super move,” I explained. “The ship starts to glitter gold, does a flip, and then kind of slams down on the space.”
“Hence the name of the game,” Hannah said with a nod.
“Yeah,” I laughed. “The move destroys all the enemies on the screen and wipes out their bullets, except for bosses. It still does damage to them, but it won’t destroy them. It’s a good move for when the screen gets really crazy, but you sometimes have to save the move for certain boss attacks that take up the whole screen. It will make more sense when you start playing. It’s pretty easy to pick up, but super hard to master. Those are my favorite type of games. Ready?”
“Sure,” she said, and then I clicked on the controller so the game would start.
“The first level is pretty easy,” I said as our ships appeared on screen. Mine was a blue color and hers was red.
“How many levels?” she asked.
“Nine,” I replied. “The highest I’ve been able to get with Kevin as my wingman is four.”
“Kevin is not a great video game player?” she asked as our ships began to encounter the first few enemies.
“He’s actually really good,” I chuckled as we started to shoot down the flying ships that attacked us on screen. “Like I said, this game is just stupid hard. It’s infamous in the gamer community for being really difficult.”
“It does not seem that hard,” she said as she effortlessly guided her ship through a small weave of bullets and returned fire.
“It’s easy now,” I laughed. “Watch your back, they are about to appear.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, the enemies started to appear behind us. One of the attacks we had aimed in that direction, and Hannah mirrored my attack a moment after I did, so now our shots were both aimed in the correct direction.
Over the next few minutes, I explained to her the strengths and weaknesses of each of the six different ship attacks. She seemed to get the concept of each of them, and a few seconds after I’d finished the tutorial, she was tearing into the enemies and switching weapon types way better than Kevin normally did.
“Dang,” I said when we hit the halfway point of the level. “You are really good at video games.”
“Thank you,” she replied with her usual shrug.
“Boss is going to come up in a few minutes,” I said as we both dodged a flurry of bullets and returned our own fire. “He’s got this whip attack that goes across the top ninety percent of the screen. He’ll pulse a slight red color right before he does it, so you can know when to steer toward the bottom of the screen. However, every third time, he won’t pulse, so you kind of have to count in your head.”
“This game is pathetic if it thinks I can be fooled by something so simple,” Hannah scoffed.
“Oh yeah,” I laughed, “let the shit talking start.”
The game’s alarm sounded, and the screen flashed with a warning sign indicating that the boss was coming our way. Then he arrived a moment later, pulsed red almost immediately, and swung his whip-arm out. Hannah and I both steered our ships out of the way and then successfully returned fire.
“The joints of his arms are weak points,” I explained, “they will take his whips out, but they don’t kill him faster. You have to hit him in the core to do that. But lots of people just shoot the arms first so they don’t have to worry about his attack.”
“We should focus our attacks on his core and kill him quicker then,” Hannah said. “We are skilled enough to avoid his whip attack.”
“I like the way you think,” I laughed, and then we both focused our fire on the boss’ core.
It pulsed red again, and we both dodged and were instantly back shooting at his core. The giant robot boss also returned fire with its own bullets in-between whipping attacks, but Hannah and I easily dodged.
“Next one there won’t be a red flash,” I said. “So, we should shoot for only a few seconds and then fall back.”
“Understood,” she responded, and we both moved so we escaped the whip attack.
Then the boss erupted in fire and began to drift off the screen.
“We did it,” I laughed as I raised my hand. “High five!”
“High five?” she asked and stared at my palm.
“Uhh, yeah. You know, when you win with someone you like, you clap hands together. You’ve never done that?”
“No … ” she said with a bit of hesitation.
“Try it quick,” I laughed. “We only get a few more seconds until the next level starts.
“Okay,” she said, and then she clapped her hand up against mine.
“See?” I chuckled as I turned back to the screen. “Pretty fun, huh?”
“Yes,” she agreed, and then the second level started, but we quickly destroyed the first wave of enemies. “What is the strategy of this level’s boss?”
“He regenerates if you don’t do damage to him consistently,” I explained.
“Then we will pour our shots into him until he is destroyed,” Hannah stated as she perfectly aimed her ship through a net of close-knit bullets.
“It’s not that easy,” I chuckled and steered my own ship after her. “He shoots thousands of bullets, so you really have to spend a lot of time dodging. Then he heals up to full.”
“But you have beaten this level before?” she asked. “With Kevin, who is inferior in ability to me.”
“Yeah,” I laughed again at her unique style of shit talking. “The solution is to have one person shoot while the other person blocks all the incoming bullets with their bubble gun attack.”
“Oh,” she sighed.
“It’s pretty easy once you get the groove,” I said. “I’ll protect you when you shoot. Just don’t worry about it.”
“You expect me to trust that you will protect me?” she asked as she gave me a side-long glance. “How do I know you won’t betray me, and--”
“It’s only a game, Hannah,” I chuckled. “We are playing to win this together. You know, like a team.”
Hannah didn’t speak for a few minutes, but that was fine because the part of the level we were on was a bit challenging. Then the alarm sounded and it was time for the boss.
“I’ll guard you,” I said. “Just shoot at his blue eye-thingy in the center. It will blink open and closed, but if you switch to the laser shot when it’s closed, you’ll still do a bit of damage to him that keeps him from regenerating.”
“And you will protect me?” she asked, and the tone of her voice made me think she had absolutely zero confidence I would actually do what I said I was going to do.
“Yep,” I laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you, babe.”
“Very well,” she sighed, and then we both engaged with the boss.
“Just hold steady,” I instructed as I flew my ship around hers and whacked all the incoming missiles with my own bullets. There were a lot of them coming, but Kevin and I had done this level a few thousand times, and the only thing making me nervous was not impressing Hannah.
We didn’t speak for half a minute while we both played. This battle really wasn’t that hard, as long as one player just completely focused on defending the other. There were other boss battles later in the game with similar mechanics that required both players to fly their ships in specific directions while pretty much on top of each other, but for this boss, Hannah only needed to stay stationary while I did most of the grunt work.
Then the boss started smoking, and his ruined robot-ship body fell away from the screen.
“Hell yeah!” I exclaimed as I raised my hand again.
“You protected me,” Hannah said with a bit of disbelief as she gave me a high five.
“Of course,” I snickered. “If you died then I wouldn’t have been able to get to the next level.”
“So, you protected me in self interest?” she asked as her blue eyes narrowed a bit.
> “Naw,” I laughed, “I want to spend time with you. I like playing games with you, Hannah. If either one of us died, the game is over. I don’t want to play without you.”
“Oh.” Hannah inhaled and stared into my eyes for a few moments.
“Next level,” I said, and then we both turned so we could focus on the screen.
All of the game took place in various sci-fi space or alien planet type environments, and this one had a bit of an ocean theme. The difficulty of the game got much harder with the third level, but Hannah was incredibly skilled, and every single movement or shot she made was done with incredible precision. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d actually played this game before, but just like the other night at my house, she’d seemed to not even understand the controls of the set up of the game.
She was a natural born gamer, and as we both expertly tore through the level in one of the most difficult video games ever made, I realized I was really falling in love with her.
“What is the strategy for this third boss?” she asked when we made it there.
“He’ll turn invisible and then teleport to the other side of the screen,” I replied. “We’ll have to fly to the center of the thickest bullets and try to clear them out with our defensive shots, or else he’ll reappear on top of us and destroy our ships.”
“Understood,” she said. “I will follow your lead.”
We began to fire, dodge, and return fire, but then the boss disappeared and I steered my ship towards the biggest cluster of bullets, Hannah followed me, and we used our defensive weapons to clear a small hole in the netting of moving bullets before the boss appeared on the other side of the screen.
“It worked just as you said,” she commented.
“Yep,” I replied. “This asshole is going down.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Nothing will stop us from total domination.”
“Nicccceeeee,” I laughed as we dodged around more bullets and continued to shoot into the boss. He died a minute or so after the battle started, and Hannah and I had performed almost perfectly in tandem.
“This is the level where you and Kevin fail?” Hannah asked as the fourth level started.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “It’s really hard. We are allowed three ships for the whole game, and Kevin has normally used up one or two by now. You haven’t lost a ship yet, so I think we can beat this. I’m kind of excited actually, I’ve seen people get past this on Twitch streams, but I’ve never actually done it.”
“We will not fail,” Hannah said as she nodded.
This level really was a lot harder, and wave after wave of robot monsters flew through space toward us with their guns blazing and missiles firing. I was still really used to playing this level, though, so I was able to fly through all the bullets and kill all the enemies coming at us.
And Hannah was just as good as me.
“You really understand this game,” I commented as we made it half-way through the level.
“I recognized the flight patterns of the enemy,” she said. “Then, when their shots emerge, I can predict their velocity and angle to avoid the shots.”
“Well, it’s super awesome,” I said, “but this boss is really hard. We have to hit him from two different angles, and our shots have to land around the same time so he’ll drop his shields. Then we have to quickly shoot his center. One person has to use the lasers, and the other has to use forward fire rays.”
“I will use the lasers,” she said.
“Sounds good,” I replied, and then the boss fight started.
We didn’t talk during the match, we just didn’t need to. Hannah seemed to know what I was going to do before I was going to do it, and I backed her up in the same way. We danced our ships through hundreds of bullets and missiles, blocked for each other, and then killed the boss in record time. As soon as it was over, my mouth hung open, and I turned to her.
“That was crazy,” I gasped. “You are amazing.”
“High five?” she asked as she raised her hand.
“Yes!” I laughed, and then I slapped my hand against hers. “Let’s see how far we can get. I’ve never played past this point, but I’ve seen others do it.”
“We will win,” she said confidently.
“Hey guys!” I heard Kevin call from behind us, but neither of us turned around to look at him.
“We’re on level five!” I half-shouted.
“Oh, shit!” he hissed as he swung a chair out and sat down next to us.
None of us spoke while Hannah and I made it through the level. It was significantly harder than level four, but the blonde beauty and I tore through it with the accuracy and grace of Olympic figure skaters.
“This is the double boss,” Kevin whispered as soon as the alert started.
“What is the strategy?” Hannah asked.
“There are two of them,” I said. “They overlap most of the time, but sometimes they split apart and take up almost all the screen. If you can find a tiny hole to fly into, do it, but otherwise, you might have to use the special move to become immune to damage.”
“Understood,” she said, and then the boss fight started.
“Attacking the left one,” I muttered as I steered my ship there.
“With you,” she replied and almost instantly took my path.
“Back to the other one,” I said after we’d shot at the first one.
“Done,” she responded as we moved in perfect harmony.
“Holy shit,” Kevin whispered. “You guys are so fucking good together. No one has even died.”
“They are splitting!” I called out.
“I found a hole,” Hannah calmly replied.
“Got one,” I sighed with relief when I managed to steer my own ship safely to a spot.
“Back together,” Hannah said.
“Yeah,” I replied, “they are moving back together.”
“I actually meant us,” she said. “The path between us is clear, so I will come to you so we can be more effective.”
“Oh, yeah,” I laughed.
“How can you be laughing,” Kevin groaned. “There are like, a thousand missles on the screen. I can’t even keep track of where you both are flying.”
“We are superior to you,” Hannah said without looking at him. “You should respect our excellence and show us proper deference.”
“Oh my god,” Kevin laughed. “Tony, your girlfriend is such a shit talker.”
“Uhhh, I mean, I dunno if we are actually boyfriend and--” I started to say, but then the bosses were destroyed, and Hannah turned to me with her hand raised.
“High five,” she demanded with a smile on her beautiful face.
“Hell yeah!” I said as I brought my hand to hers.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Kevin repeated as the next level started. “This shit is crazy. Almost no one can make it to level six.”
“We are the best, of course,” Hannah scoffed, and then she leaned forward in her chair as the waves of enemies came on screen.
Shit got intense.
Enemies were everywhere. Bullets and missiles seemed to cover the entire screen. Every time I flew my ship, sparks came off the hull since I was so close to the enemy fire. Sweat trickled down my back as I fired, dodged, and flew across the screen. Hannah was with me every step of the way, and I almost felt like we both had some sort of mental link. We didn’t need to speak, we just kind of knew what the other person was going to do, and then we were there to assist them.
“Boss,” I finally gasped when the alert came on screen.
“Hey!” I heard Renee shout. “Are you both still on lunch br--”
“They are on level six of Glittering GoldShip!” Kevin screamed back to her.
“Ohhhhh,” Renee replied, but I didn’t bother to look back at her face.
All that mattered at the moment was beating this boss with Hannah.
“He’s going to try and grab us with his robot hands,” I whispered. “He moves quicker than we can fl
y, so the other person needs to shoot the fist so he lets go. It has to happen in five seconds or the captured ship is crushed.”
“Understood,” Hannah said, and then the boss grabbed my ship, but she quickly shot me free.
The battle was long, but Hannah and I covered each other, and after five minutes of epic flying, this boss was defeated.
“Wow,” I heard Renee said, and I blinked up and saw her sitting next to Kevin. “No one has made it this far.”
“You said earlier you did not like video games,” Hannah growled at the other woman.
“Well,” Renee sighed, “look, I know this game is super hard. I can appreciate what you both are doing. There is a lot going on. I can’t even keep track of it.”
“Next level is starting!” Kevin hissed everyone to be quiet, and we all turned back to the screen.
So many bad guys.
So many bullets.
So many missiles.
I’d seen it all before when I’d watched the best pros in the world play this game, but living it felt incredibly surreal. It was like I was in some sort of out of body or Zen-like state. As the waves of enemies descended on Hannah and me, there was almost no room to move, but we had to move because there were too many bullets.
We squeezed our ships through tiny holes in blankets of bullets. We dodged and countered volleys of endless missiles, and we destroyed what seemed like millions of enemies.
“What the hell are you all doing in here?” I heard Darren yell, but his voice sounded far away. It was almost like he was in another world, or like I was swimming through pool water and he was yelling at me from the edge.
All that I knew existed was Hannah and our thousands of enemies.
“The boss!” I heard Kevin shout, but he also sounded far away. It was almost like I was actually inside the spaceship in the game, and even though it was a two dimensional top down scroller, I could almost imagine really going through this in my own spaceship.
Hannah and I didn’t even talk about the boss. We just moved in sync and began to pummel him with our bullets while he tried to destroy us. I thought he would actually be harder than the previous boss, but something had changed with Hannah and me, and as we sat next to each other, it almost seemed as if we were sharing the same mind.
