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The air hockey world championship grand finals were already long over by the time I got back to the arcade. How did I know? Well, it got a lot easier weaving through the crowd, since there practically wasn\'t any crowd to weave through at all… just a dispersing remnant of one, the expressions on their faces basked in some kind of intense afterglow.

Must have been a pretty epic finale. Hope somebody recorded it at least.

I headed back to where all the clicking and clacking were sounding, but one look over at the battleground showed that another pair had taken over now, having their go at abusing the poor hockey puck, this time with not as much fanfare and hype the match prior.

For a moment there I thought I was gonna have to search the entire complex looking for them, but with a loud clack of heels and someone rigorous coughing from behind… apparently, that wouldn\'t have to be necessary.

"Well, well, here returns the runaway prize, looking his prize-y self as always," Amanda had her hands to her hips, jutting them to one side like a model in a pose. If she\'s intentionally looking pretentious, it\'s working. "Samantha said you went to the restroom, what happened? Clog your foot in the toilet bowl or something? You missed the match." 

"Yeah, I guessed as much," I said, peeking over her shoulder thinking I\'d find the rest, but nope, nothing there but the slight sway of her hair. "Where\'s the other two?" 

She blew a puff of air. "Really? I thought the logical question to ask first would be who won the round?"

"Well, obviously Ash did, right?" I replied, and before she could lash at and incriminate me with any baseless assumptions, added, "Otherwise you would be all over me by now, wouldn\'t you?"

She blew an even bigger puff. "What? I\'m not that clingy." 

"Yes, you are."

"Argh, who died and made you detective?" She exclaimed, clicking her tongue, then realizing I\'d had her beat, finally relented the outcome. "Alright, fine! Yes! Ash won. I never even stood a chance in the first place."

I gave her a smile. "See?"

"I told you she\'s seriously broken," The sore loser continued to grumble and whine. "The more she does something, the better she gets at it. It\'s unfair, this game is rigged."

"Wow, a rigged game," I said, pondering upwards to the ceiling. "I always wondered how that would feel like. I certainly wouldn\'t know." 

Amanda was not having any of my smartassery at the moment, so I decided to stop because saying any more was like pouring lemon juice on an open wound that was already sprinkled with a toxic dose of salt.

"Anyway, so now you each both won a game," I said, swiftly changing topics. "All we now need is a tiebreaker and we can finally end this whole rivalry business." 

"Mmm," with a heel turn, Amanda began to walk and I promptly matched her pace, strutting alongside her crossed arms and her slightly disgruntled expression. "Actually while you were gone, we already found the perfect tiebreaker to decide our victor." 

I glanced at her, an eyebrow rising. "You did?"

"We did," She corrected, turning a sudden left deeper inwards that had me missing the turn and doubling back. "Sammy and I, we found it, decided on it, it\'s the perfect final round! Only…" 

"Only?" 

She threw me a dull dreary look. "Only Ash doesn\'t seem to think so." 

Oh-ho-ho? What\'s this? A modern world commodity that Ash, the easily mesmerized, easily fascinated, Elf-Knight herself was feeling reluctant to give a go? Okay, this I gotta see to believe.

A few more turns across a few more cabinets before we were finally there, finally coming face to face with this quote-unquote \'perfect final round\'. It took me a moment to single it out amongst the other arcade machines scattered around the vicinity, but when I did, when I finally saw it… I realized that I\'ve been hearing it the whole time we were here, I just never noticed it.

The techno synth, the hip-hop beats, the pop songs that got my feet tapping that would echo in the background ever so often. At first, I thought that it was just songs on a loop played on a loudspeaker or something, but it wasn\'t actually… it was this all along.

A big machine laid out center-stage, its bottom half just a row of speakers booming a frenetic beat, while the upper half consisted of just a wide flat-screen, displaying a scene of a glowing neon silhouette swaying to the rhythm… a dance machine.

I remembered cocking my head back, I also remembered turning to Amanda wanting to make sure I wasn\'t just looking at the wrong machine, but the smirk on her face told me without a doubt that I wasn\'t.

Sammy was there already on one of the neon-flashing platforms, in the midst of a bop, and from where I was standing, it looked as if she was doing a parade march rather than a dance really. She paid more focus stamping on the arrow keys in time to the beat than she did pulling off any flashy dance moves.

Actually, I take back the marching comment - it was more like she was stomping on a colony of ants. Still, can\'t deny from the smile I briefly saw on her face that she was having the time of her life there committing insect genocide. 

Seeing her be so energetic and loose had me thinking of Mom again. Like, you couldn\'t even tell there was anything wrong with how carefree she looked right then. 

If this was all it took for her to easily forget her troubles, then it must just mean it wasn\'t that much of a trouble in the first place, right? She wasn\'t afraid of Mom that much, right?

"Well?" Amanda asked, her face popping into my corner view.

"Seriously?" I said in the face of her widening smile.

"What better way to decide a winner but with a dance-off?" She reasoned. "It seems only right, right?" 

Honestly in a bizarre, twisted sort of sense, she was speaking sense… and yeah, I guess I don\'t really disagree. A dance-off seems right, seems fun. Imagining Amanda twisting and turning made for a pretty enticing sight, watching her bounce, seeing her wiggle, yeah, okay, I\'m seeing the appeal and I\'m liking what I\'m seeing.

Oh, and I can\'t forget Ash either now, could I? Come to think of it, when was the last time I\'ve ever seen her dance? That\'s right, just one! And that wasn\'t even a proper one! This was a chance! This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Seeing her wiggle more than just her ears would be like the grace of heaven pouring down on this godforsaken -!

"You think any harder, and your thoughts are gonna start spilling out of your ears," Amanda remarked, snapping me back to reality with the piercing stare of her gaze. "Welcome back, I hope you had a fun time in there imagining Ash\'s swaying hips. Must be nice, huh?" 

Damn, was I that obvious? 

"A-and yours too, I thought of yours too," I said quickly, foolishly. "Yours were nice too. In fact, yours were even better, maybe!" 

"Even better maybe..." She repeated back to me, slowly nodding away all validity of that statement. "Alrighty, whatever you say… you smooth talker, you." 

"Well, I won\'t know until I see the real thing in action now, will I?" I said to my defense. 

"Fair point," Amanda crossed her arms again, giving a sigh. "But unless Ash is willing to play ball, I suppose those Elf-hips you\'re thirsting over for so much will just have to forever remain locked in the confines of your imagination." 

Veering my gaze off to the side, I finally spotted that unmistakable hoodie in the distance. Ash silently stared glittering unblinking eyes over at Sammy, her face a weird mixture of both amusement and confusion… standing so unusually still, it was like she was purposely trying to stifle all movement.

"What\'s up with her?" I asked.

"So you can deduce that she won the second round through observing the nuances of my mannerisms but you can\'t figure out what\'s up with her through hers?" Amanda gaped at me in amazement. "I\'ve heard of selective memory, but this is the first I\'m seeing a case of selective intelligence." 

I gave her that same look she gave me way back when about smartassery, and from that, she relented once more.

"What else, genius?" She said with a roll of the eyes. "The maiden\'s shy and meek about it. That\'s the logical assumption anyway." 

"Shy and meek?" I formed a frown. "She danced with me before at the convention, don\'t see why she\'d get cold feet now about it."

"That\'s a gentle, delicate waltz, my dear, hardly a thing to be embarrassed over," Amanda sweety, politely explained, then with a point of a finger, directed my gaze over back again at Sammy, who at this point looked as if she was having a seizure standing up. "Does that look any at all gentle or delicate to you?" 

Hmm… point taken.

"Who knows though, maybe if it\'s you... hmph, who am I kidding, of course if it\'s you that\'s asking..." Amanda said, giving me a push on the back that sent me stumbling slightly in Ash\'s direction. "She\'ll happily bounce her \'assets\' for you. Lucky you, hm?"

I briefly looked back at her, "I wasn\'t thinking - "

"Shut up and go," She interjected, nudging her chin forward.. "I want to bounce for you too already."