Riley and Ami chat over Riley kicking butt in a shoot-em-up video game.

It might be a miracle. Ami Mizuno, girl genius, is not studying for once. Instead, she's trying her hand at a new video game that's come in. She's doing pretty well at it, too, her natural intelligence and honed dexterity serving her well.

A small crowd has gathered around her, and she doesn't seem to notice. The shy girl would be blushing so hard if she were, and trying to escape.

Well this was something.

Arcades back home were very much a shadow of their former selves, an echo of a bygone era of clinking coin op machines, loud heavily worn down carpets and even more worn down Street Fighter cabinets. It was safe to say then, that this place was a surprise to Riley. After all, her generation rarely saw an arcade, especially not a large one like this that was still operating as it would have all the way back in the 90s serving more than just a few nostalgia junkies.

She let her eyes scan across the room. There were a few familiar titles, Dance Dance Revolution machines were still an extremely common sight everywhere you went, and she had at least heard of Time Crisis but here in Japan there were once again things completely alien to her. It seemed that everyone was crowding around one particular game though, but, that was a good thing for her. It meant shorter lines.

Eventually, a popular shooter game took her fancy. She walkd up to it, inspecting the blue and pink plastic pistols and picked one up and looked it over. "Ah what the hell" she said to herself, while reaching into her pocket, inserting the right change and then virtually slamming the "start" button. "Worth a shot. Pfft, accidental pun."

Finally, Ami beats the game and leans back, to cheers from the audience. Then she notices the crowd, flushes, and gives an awkward bow. Then she works her way out of the group and looks around, trying to find someone to talk to despite her shyness. She spots someone who is obviously unfamiliar to the area and walks up to her. "Excuse me," she says in Japanese, naturally, but willing to switch to a number of languages--albeit poorly--on a dime.

Riley was utterly going to town on this game. Arcade machine or not, the kid clearly still knew how to handle a firearm, her movements were quick, her stance solid and trigger discipline excellent. It was almost funny in a way, it looked as though she was taking this silly little arcade game *extremely* seriously, even fumbling for a mag release button when the bright flashing "RELOAD" sign came up on screen before realising... "Oh right, this is an arcade machine. Duh."

Riley gave Ami a quick glance, before quickly putting her attention back to the game, snapping off a couple of well aimed shots peering down the sight and vanquishing a couple of polygonal bad guys. A cutscene played after that, giving her a moment of respite to actually chat to this newcomer.

She held her "weapon" up and away, fingers off the trigger resting on the guard. "Hey there. What's up?" Her American accent was fairly strong, though understandeable enough, though it was clear that Japanese was not the girl's first language.

Smiling, Ami says with a little blush, "I just wanted to tell you--you're quite good at this. I can let you be now," she says, and bows.

"Uuuh, hah, thanks? Yeah this ain't too ha- What. Okay, they're throwing barrels now. Are you kidding me?" Riley was mostly focused on the game, snapping off well aimed shot after shot hitting near perfect center mass each time before slamming her foot down on the pedal to duck back into cover, though she wasn't exactly ignoring Ami. "Barrels down a staircase man, what the hell?"

"I got no problems with you sticking around if you want. Hey, don't you go to Seishou? Swear I recognise you from- oop!" She took a moment to "John Wick" her way through another room of business suit wearing bad guys, piping up again almost as though she wasn't interrupted. "-Somewhere."

The bluenette laughs despite herself. "Yes, I go to Seishou. I'm a senior," she says. "I'm happy to meet you! I'm Ami Mizuno. You also look familiar, which is probably why I came over. That, and your immense skill at the game," she says with another chuckle. "Have you played it much? You really are good. Or else your reflexes are just incredible."

"Riley. Riley Hunter." She laughed at the "immense skill" comment, shaking her head. "Immense skill? Shucks, you do me too much credit. Naw, I ain't ever even played this one before. Just sharp reflexes and knowin' how to handle a gun I'd wager. This place is crazy though, I thought all the arcades would've closed down like they did back home in the US of A. Guess-" She took a moment to take a couple more shots, a low res speedboat flipping end over end with another hail of slightly blue-ish white polygons to represent the violent spray of water. "-Hah, that was awesome. Get the feelin' I should say something smart after that. Ahem. Guess arcades are more popular here?"

Ami watches Riley with some amusement. "Ah, yes, Americans are pretty gun-savvy, in my experience," she says, but it isn't meant in a mean way! Just, she's met a few, and they at least know how to shoot. "I've never held one beyond a toy in my life." Then she nods. "Arcades are immensely popular here still, yeah. You can see, Crown is still going strong." And she sounds fond of the place. It must be a home away from home for her. "It's nice to meet you, Riley Hunter."

"Hah, yeah, I guess we are. 'Specially down in the deep south where I'm from. Pretty much everyone had somethin'." She focused again on the game, despite the shooter being set up to be a real "quarter muncher" on the later stages, Riley was pushing on through, on rare occasions dropping another coin in the slot to get a continue.

"Well, nice to meet you too Ami. What was that game you were playin' over there? I think I'm close to having this one beat."

"Oh, it was some puzzle platformer. I like it when I'm trying to relax," Ami says, looking back over with a shrug. "It's very cerebral. You might like it! I don't know what you like, but I find it relaxing."

Ami finding cerebral things relaxing is very in character, so unless Riley is a fan of reading and tinkering with puzzles, it might not be the game for her.

"Hah puzzles? Not really my spee- Hah! Yisss!" The final boss went down in a spray of pixelated PG-13 blue and orange polygons, spirally off the top of a strange trippy HR Geiger looking monstrosity of a platform, spiralling downwards into a boiling, swirling sea of late 90s CGI. She grinned, looking perhaps a little smug as she blew some imaginary smoke from the barrel of the plastic pistol stand-in before placing it back into its little holder thing on the center of the, well, "console" she supposed.

Being another magic user though, Ami might have noticed something... different about Riley. A subtle orange/brassy glow around her, in particular when she was showing off those fast reflexes of those against particularly quick enemies.

Ami noticed, all right. She quirked a brow at Riley's turned back, before smoothing her expression quickly and smiling. "What brings you to Tokyo?" the genius girl asks. "Good fight," she adds after a moment, nodding to the screen.

"What brings me to Tokyo? Hah! I *live* here! Think i'd be going to Seishou if I was just on vacation? Jeez, I'd have better things to do than go to school if I was here for the heck of it." She laughed, before continuing. "Yeah parents moved 'bout a year ago? I got dragged along with. Adjusting has been, well, uh, strange. Other side of the world and all. Big city too. I'm used to bein' out in the countryside like I said.

Blushing, Ami nods. "I see." She looks around, quiet, confused. "I mean, yes, your parents moved. But why?" is what she'd MEANT to ask, but instead she comes up with, "What do you do for fun, Riley?" -- because Ami is so polite it hurts.

"Oh y'know, what does any kid do around here?" She shrugged. "Tokyo's got pretty much everything but I've always been more of an outdoorsy kind of person. There's some nice spots outside the city limits that my Dad and I sometimes go hiking in. Always used to do that back home. What about you? Apart from eh, apart from the arcade I guess."

"Oh, I like to study," Ami says. She's starting to fear that things aren't going as well as she'd hoped. "But my friend Rei has a lovely shrine near here, Hikawa. She's a maiden, I guess her grandfather really runs it." She's rambling. She shuts up for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "There's not much to do, hiking-wise. But there's a lot of nature there."

"You study when you don't have to? Man. Well, whatever works for ya'." She shrugged. "I guess I ain't that different there, I tend to help dad out with his cars and stuff. He restores real old classic ones. I spent half my time lookin' up how to do stuff with 'em. I uh, I think that counts anyway."

She nodded, hearing about the shrine. "I uh, I think I know what shrine you're talking about but I never really checked it out closer though. Maybe I'll have to give it a look some time. Sounds nice."

It was at that moment her phone started to ring...

Brring brring... brring brring.

"Argh, sorry, it's mom, gotta take this." She paused, lifting it up to her ear and talking in English. "Eyy. Yup, yeah I'm at the arcade. Ooooh shi- I'll be right there! Yup! Seeya in a bit!" She shut it off, plonking it back in her pocket. "Yeah I gotta scoot, nice talking to ya' though." She grinned, gave a thumbs up, then turned to walk out.

Once outside though, she took a moment, looking around to see if anyone was watching aaand... Took off. Just, *woosh*, flying up vertical in a streak of fire, fortunately with no bystanders seeing despite just how dense Tokyo was.

Yup. Riley was a "superhero" too.