Cabinets, consoles, and a sprawling crowd. All of these things were what met Kai as he entered TOAL’s arcade, utterly mesmerizing him with the fact that such a serious facility could have something so… fun! But in a way, it made sense.

Kai couldn’t imagine anyone here working their asses off without some kind of distraction now and again. And since they were all so far away from Earth with the only other source of entertainment as far as he knew being the public library, it made sense for the members of TOAL to have constructed this electronic paradise.

Kai made his way across the sparkle specked black tiled floor, letting his eyes wander around the neon-lit room as he took in the countless electronic amenities. It was just like an arcade from back on Earth, with dozens of cabinets and machines lined against the walls and each other in neat rows, while still providing plenty of space to navigate the sprawling setup.

The first set of cabinets to grab his attention looked incredibly familiar, with either printed or hand painted designs that anyone with even a shred of pop culture knowledge could recognize. There was… hold on. Dunkey Kung, Road Fighter, and Toadder, to name a few.

Kai observed the knockoffs with a mix of confusion subtly tinged with a hint of cringe. As Hannah Neal told him earlier, most of the Earth technology present at TOAL had to be built from scratch, like with their printers. And even though Kai still had his phone on him thanks to it being in his pocket when he was summoned, he doubted anyone would’ve been holding onto a full-sized arcade cabinet when they were portalled across space and time. Let alone an entire arcade’s worth.

Kai excused the strange names as either a poor attempt at originality, or an instinctual fear of angering an army of interdimensional lawyers. Still, on the bright side, none of these custom cabinets seemed to have coin slots or any means of scanning a pay card, so that probably meant they were free play!

Kai was ready to run up to one of them and press the start button, but the sheer curiosity burning in him for what other wonders could be housed in this technologically anachronistic playpen overrode the more impatient part of his brain that longed for instant gratification. And it didn’t take long before he was glad he did.

Beyond the first set of cabinets were a quartet of massive setups, each featuring a set of steps that led to a 9 square dance pad cordoned off with cushioned railings, and a massive monitor. Bright red, green, and blue neon lights that resembled actual flames flashed across its surface, advertising the machines as “Dank Dancer Revolved.” As far as knockoff names went, Kai felt that this one wasn’t too bad. Or rather, it could’ve simply been so bad, that it wrapped around to being decent again.

Behind him, Kai could see what looked like several game consoles attached to a set of monitors, with several knock off controllers coming out of each of them. While he really wanted to take a look at what they were all about, the allure of the grandiose dance machine in front of him finally won him over.

The young man slowly made his way up the glowing, steel sheet metal steps to the dance platform and regarded the screen in front of him. Upon noticing his presence, the screen lit up and displayed a list of songs, many of them he didn’t recognize either because they were all original pieces by the members of TOAL or due to their general obscurity, even on Earth.

Kai pressed his right foot against the square in front of him, labelled with an upwards facing arrow. The list began to cycle through the selections, displaying even more songs Kai didn’t recognize. Eventually, he finally came upon one that he did, the opening theme song to a show he was particularly fond of back home.

Before he could step on the square to the bottom-right of him labelled START, he was interrupted by a man from below the steps.

“Hark peasant! Dost thou not knoweth that yee tread on holy ground?” exclaimed a man dressed in a set of relatively normal clothes, save for a yellow vest that lit up in the dim light. He held out his hand in the stereotypical Shakespearean pose and put a medieval English effect into his voice.

“Excuse me?” asked Kai in a raised voice, more fearful and bewildered than really offended at being called a peasant.

“Oh hold on, are you new here?” asked the yellow-vested man, letting his hand fall to his side and speaking in a normal South American accent. “I don’t think I’ve seen your face here before.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” replied Kai, settling down himself. “This is my second day at TOAL.”

“Oh! In that case, welcome! To both the League and the arcade! I’m the manager, Rafael. Sorry about the show earlier, I like to put it on for the regulars.”

“Thanks, and uh… nice to meet you, Rafael. I’m Kai.” The young man walked down the steps and shook the manager’s mildly sweaty hand.

“It’s great to have you here Kai, but you’ll have to wait a bit before you can dance.”

“How come?” Had he violated some kind of unspoken code of conduct? Was he actually supposed to pay for entry and Gus forgot to tell him?

“We’re actually about to have a tournament in a bit, and we need all of the machines for it. 4-way elimination, and all that. Everyone here’s been looking forward to it for months!”

Or maybe something like that. “Hold on, months? Damn, that’s a long time just to get set up for a local tournament.”

“Yeah, but it’s not exactly ‘local’. There are a lot of people coming over from across the multiverse, so we had to give a lot of time in advance for them all to make it here at once.”

Kai regarded the manager with apprehension. A multiversal DDR tournament months in the making?

“Ah, I see that look of yours,” he commented with a discerning smile. “And I get you, it really does sound ridiculous! But a lot of these guys and gals, they want a challenge, one that they can’t easily get after beating a Dark Lord. And this is one of their last ways to get one on even footing.”

“Huh?” Kai replied in utter disbelief, his lips curving into a farcical grin. “You’re telling me that this is the only thing that’ll challenge them? Actual goddamn heroes? Hold on, is it that the ‘horrible scourges terrorizing the land’ were all born with two left feet or something?”

“I know it sounds that way, but these people seriously need it,” replied the yellow-vested man with a soft frown. “Imagine taking down ‘the scourge of the land’ and having nothing else as exciting to do afterwards? Dark Lords don’t exactly grow on trees, you know. And these ex-heroes might not have the acumen for business, inventing, or the arts. So what are they left with to bring their lives meaning? Playing against other Earthers in a dancing game tournament where everyone’s on an even playing field. No levels, no magic, nothing but everyones’ own two feet.”

Kai stared back at the man, his smile having faded into an embarrassed frown. “Oh wow, I didn’t realize. Sorry about that.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” said the manager with a sigh. “I’m guessing you haven’t fought a Dark Lord yourself, then?”

“Nope, I was brought here straight from Earth.”

“Then that explains everything! Listen kid, you might be wishing TOAL left you where they found you so you could’ve gone on an adventure, but believe me when I say that it probably isn’t worth it. Even Fairytale Worlds aren’t always what you think they’re cut out to be.”

“Don’t worry, I got a good look at what was waiting for me, and I’m glad Artyom showed up when he did.”

“Hold on, Artyom rescued you? Damn, you’re a lucky one, then! The man won’t let anything get in his way when it comes to saving us Earthers! There’s nobody better here to save your ass when it’s on the line.”

“Yeah, he seemed pretty intense. I’m just glad he’s on our side.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” chuckled the manager. “Good thing we’re from Earth, with someone like him in charge.”

“Wait, he’s in charge?”

“Yeah, he’s part of the executive council that makes the big decisions around here. One of the founding members, and everything. But unlike the others, he usually likes to get his hands dirty.”

“Huh, I didn’t know that’s what the executive council was. And yeah, I even saw him in action back then.”

The yellow-vested man nodded back. “Right. So, sorry to kick you off the dance pads, but you should check out the other arcade machines. A lot of love went into making them as well, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of fun with them. Maybe you can join in on the next tournament?”

“I’ll do that, but why not this one? If there’s an open spot, I mean,” replied Kai.

“Well, do you have two hundred bucks on you right now?”

“T-two… hundred?! Why the hell would I have that much on me when I got portalled in! Or do you mean something like gold, or whatever currency these fantasy worlds use?”

“Nope, I mean the legal green from back home,” he replied, rubbing his thumb and index finger together. “And there are plenty of people who show up with something like 50 or 100 on them.”

“Well, I’ve got like maybe 20 bucks on me right now. Why would anyone have so much money on them here, though?” Kai’s face went pale. “Oh shit, do I have to buy my own room and food? I don’t even have a job!”

“Woah there my man, settle down! The money’s just for the tournament, living at TOAL’s free! Since money from Earth doesn’t really have much of a use for staying alive, it’s become somewhat of a collector’s item. And boy, have some of these people been collecting!”

“So everything here is free? How the hell do they make that work?” chuckled Kai with bemusement.

“I know I’ve made the place sound like some kind of business, but TOAL honestly feels more like a city council than anything else,” chortled Rafael. “One that happens to have a soft spot for people in our position, and tries to help out! Besides, only the food, shelter, and entertainment are really free. Everything else usually has a price tag attached to it, but it’s offered by individuals rather than TOAL itself.”

“So that makes people like you municipal employees, like firefighters or librarians?”

“Bingo! You’re learning, kid. Now treat yourself with some playtime on one of the cabinets.”

Kai waved at the man in goodbye, not wanting to shake his sweaty hand again, and headed towards the original set of arcade machines. He’d spent long enough walking and talking, now he just wanted to play something.

After a quick perusal, Kai finally settled for a cabinet labelled as “Gattaga” that featured a painting of a polygonal spaceship flying through space past alien monsters. Of all the ripoffs he’d seen, this one was of a game he had at least some positive experience with from back home.

After pressing the start button, Kai grabbed hold of the single joystick and began piloting his ship, firing on swarms of enemies that dared to cross his path. He didn’t know how long had passed, but he’d already beaten several levels and his score was in the tens of thousands. He was finally able to tune out and just enjoy the mindless distraction before him.

Well, enjoy it as long as he could. As he was about to finish the last wave of the level, the monitor went black, only showing Kai’s exasperated face on its reflective surface.

“What?! No!” shouted Kai in despair as all of his progress had been erased.

“What’s going on?” asked the manager as he walked up to the young man. “Oh, the game broke? I’ll call in a technician, sorry about that. Looked like you were doing really well, too.”

“Ugh, thanks,” replied Kai in a sulk.

Kai decided to stand in place and stare at his reflection in the broken cabinet. He’d put enough time into that particular game that he didn’t feel right abandoning it when it was at its most vulnerable. He chuckled to himself at the weirdly placed sentimentality, and how an arcade machine of all things got him to feel that way, and not a little kid who was about to be tortured and executed…

“Hey, is this the machine that needs fixing?” asked a young lady wearing a pair of pale green overalls and holding a toolbox.

“Uh, yeah. This is the one,” replied Kai, as he stepped to the side to let the technician get to work.

She began by pressing a series of buttons along the front and back, and after seeing no change, crouched down and opened the side panel. Inside, Kai could make out several boards featuring miniscule, glowing characters. They definitely weren’t English, or any other language he’d ever seen before.

He expected to see a bunch of circuitry and wires, but instead was met with… whatever this was. The woman took out a strange looking tool from her box and began passing it over the characters, watching intently for any kind of reaction from the device. With her device displaying a green light over everything to signify no problems, she tisked in frustration and put the tool away before sticking her head back into the cabinet.

“Hey, is that entire thing made out of magic or something?” asked Kai. “I thought this was supposed to run on a computer or something.”

“It is a computer,” replied the technician, her voice muffled by the enclosed space her head was in. “In the technical sense.”

“It doesn’t look technical to me.”

“Pfft!” she chortled back. “Hold on, I think I found the problem. And… bingo!”

The cabinet came back to life, the screen once again showing the lone spaceship.

“That should do it, just a broken connection between some of the glyphs.”

“Alright then, thanks for fixing it! But how does an arcade cabinet run on glyphs, or whatever?”

“Oh right,” she replied, extricating herself from the cabinet and shaking her head with a smile. “You know computers back home are really just a bunch of logic gates, right? Turns out we can just do the same thing, but with magic instead, so we end up with a magic computer!”

“For real? But how does that work? I thought you needed silicon or something to make computers. Seriously, how the hell does it all work? Sorry, this is only my second day here, and I don’t even know the first thing about magic yet.”

The technician studied Kai’s face for a long moment before smiling. “Well, you do look sincere, I’ll give you that. You know what? I’ve got some free time, so I’ll give you a quick guide!”

“For real? Nice, thanks!”

“No problem. So where do I begin? You know what a logic gate is, right? Takes one or more signals, and outputs a new one based on whether those signals are on or off. Like an AND gate will take two signals, and output a powered signal only if both of the incoming signals are also powered. Or an OR gate that’ll do the same, but it only needs at least one of those input signals to be on.”

“Uh, not really. But what you just said explains it. So you can do the same with magic? Like pour some down a wire and make that count as powered on or off?”

“Pretty much! Though the exact implementation is a little more nuanced than just that, but not by much. And you can do a lot of neat things with logic gates. Do some math like adding or multiplying, storing information, and things like that. The setups for those can get a little big and complicated, but they’re pretty established and we can pretty much just copy-paste a base template around. Copy-paste enough in the right places, and you can get even more complicated functionality like in a modern day computer!”

“Alright, makes sense. So you just use magic instead of silicon or whatever to make your computers?”

“Yup! It’s pretty crazy what we’ve been able to do with a bit of magic. Seriously, it’s some of the most versatile tools around!”

“Damn, I can’t wait to start learning some for myself, then.”

“Fair warning though, magic is only the half of it. If it weren’t also for knowledge of modern computation, we wouldn’t have anything like this! Why do you think most magical Worlds out there are stuck in the middle ages?”

“Well I haven’t really been to any but one, but I’m gonna guess that it’s because they use magic as a crutch? I feel that’s a pretty common trope in a lot of the shows I’ve watched.”

“Pretty much. That, and they have other magical ways to do what a computer does, so they never saw the need to expand that way. There’s also the anthropological factors of it taking so long to train up a mage in the first place, and… you know what? You can find books on all of those things at the library, even on how to build a computer!”

“Huh, I should check it out then. But I’m not going to be able to until tomorrow. Well, thanks for telling me how all of this works, it was pretty interesting.”

“Hey, no problem! If you have any other questions about the cabinets here or computers, feel free to ask! I have a lot of free time nowadays, now that I’ve finished a rotation with R&D. For me at least, working with the arcade is mostly a hobby that also happens to pay my nonexistent bills. I know it sounds suuuper boring, but just reading through those docs and rebuilding a piece of Earth hardware from scratch with nothing but my wits and a bit of enchanting just feels so magical! Like I’m bringing a piece of home with me to share with everyone else here! Like it’s giving me a purpose.”

“Kind of like with everyone who’s in the DDR tournament.”

“Yeah, I guess it is like that. I mean, we keep ourselves busy with work, but we need something to actually give us that purpose, you know?”

“To be honest, not really. I mean, I’m still in high school, sort of. So getting enough work done to have fun afterwards was my purpose.”

“Well don’t worry about it. There’s a lot going on here at TOAL and you have all the time in the world to find something that makes you happy. So in the meantime, have some fun! That’s kind of the end goal, after all.”

Kai was about to take her up on her request by ending the conversation and getting back to his game, but his curiosity was yet to be sated. “So what’s with all of the crazy names for these games? Are the people who built them scared of interdimensional lawyers, or something?” he asked with a chuckle.

“There’s probably a little bit of that,” the technician replied with a smile. “But mostly they didn’t feel like taking full credit for something already invented by somebody else.”

“Really? The original inventors of those games aren’t exactly around to start any shit over it, so why bother?”

“I always figured it was out of respect, more than anything else. I mean, the fact we even have these cabinets, let alone TOAL headquarters itself, is because of those original inventors. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants, after all. So it makes sense that some people want to at least try honoring them.”

“Huh, I never really thought about it that way,” said Kai with his hand on his chin. “And what about those games in the back? They look more like home consoles than cabinets.”

“That’s because they are! Well, for the most part. Those games are a lot harder to put together, so we just set up emulators for the consoles instead. That means whenever somebody shows up from Earth with a burned disc or ROM file, we’ve all got another game to play!”

“That’s pretty cool!” replied Kai with a bright smile. “I’ve actually got a couple of old games on my phone that I could share around in that case.”

“For real? Sweet! Let me take a look at what you’ve got on it!” exclaimed the woman as she held out her hand.

Kai took half a step back and hesitated, an incredibly subtle hint of red forming on his dark cheeks. “Er… on second thought, you probably already have those games on your emulators, they’re pretty popular.”

The technician squinted at the young man, before opening her eyes wide and breaking out into a fit of laughter. “Oh, I see what’s going on! Don’t worry about it, I won’t take a look in that case.”

“Wait wait, it’s not that!” quickly backpedaled Kai.

“Really, don’t worry about it! If anything, you should take it all to the library anyway. There’s this huge archival project going on for anything from Earth, and they’ll take literally anything. Even hentai!”

Kai’s blush grew more fierce, to the point it would’ve been noticeable from across the dimly lit room. After a quick cough and several deep breaths, he was able to reign it in control and continue the conversation as if his reaction was completely normal. “Oh wow, haha.” He took another deep breath. “So what’s the worst thing someone’s brought over, then?”

“Hmm, probably a copy of Boku no Pico.”

[Author's Note: This is the thing you should be wary of looking up. To those who are still curious but have a weak stomach, it's something absolutely abhorrent that's joked around in anime circles as a form of shock humor. That's the only reason I know that it exists, and don't look it up if you don't want to feel bad. If you still do, use an incognito tab, at least]

Kai stared at her for a couple of seconds. Was something in his ears, or maybe he overheard someone else shout those words from just behind her? Nope, nobody else there. “I’m sorry, Boku no…”

“Pico. Yeah, that’s what I said,” she replied with a slow, nervous chuckle.

Kai’s eyes widened in shock, and then bewilderment, and after that he hoped that maybe he was just being pranked. But judging by the embarrassed, yet utterly sincere, face of the lady in front of him, he knew he wasn’t. She was serious.

“Yo, what the fuck?!” shouted the young man. “Why the hell do you have something like that at the library?!”

“Woah, hold on! The moment the head librarian realized what it was, he sealed it in the deepest pits of that archive, and you’d need a unanimous vote from the executive council to retrieve it. So don’t worry, it’s probably never going to see the light of day!”

Kai let out a sigh of relief, accompanied by a weary smile. But that soon dropped as well as he began worriedly shifting his head around, pausing momentarily whenever his eyes passed over a child. “Who brought it here in the first place? Are they still around?”

“Some soldier found it on a broken phone on the remains of someone who ended up in a… particularly nasty Grimdark World, and he brought it back as-is. They only found the surprise after the librarian got it fixed up and took a look at what was inside.”

Kai breathed another sigh, and this time, the solace on his face stayed in place. “Whoever owned that phone probably deserved to end up in a Grimdark World in that case. I mean, yeesh!”

“Well, we’ve never met the owner,” replied the technician with a thoughtful frown. “And for all who knows, someone could’ve put that cursed shit on their phone as a prank or something. Besides, even if worse came to worst about the kind of person they really were, they still didn’t deserve to end up on Carnicula.”

“Carnicula? I’ve heard that name earlier today from Ms. Neal, but I still don’t really know what that is because nobody wants to talk about it, apparently.”

“I’d rather not talk about it too much either,” replied the young woman as she rubbed her head, as if trying to dismiss something painful or soothe a raging headache. “But all you need to know is that a lot of people died there, both directly summoned Earthers and agents from TOAL. Ugh, I think I have to go now. But you should still enjoy yourself, and don’t let all of that put a damper on your fun!”

“Alright, I won’t,” said Kai, with an apologetic nod. “And sorry for asking.”

“That’s alright, you’re curious. Just don’t go around asking randomly, some people might get angry.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t… by the way, what’s your name?”

“I’m Adilet,” replied the technician.

“Kai.”

“Well, it really was a pleasure to meet you, Kai. If you’re still interested in how we made these things, feel free to stop by the tech lab for a tour! The researchers and engineers there are always looking for prospective new members.”

“Sure, I’ll definitely stop by!”

Adilet made her egress, leaving Kai standing back at the Gattaga cabinet. He closed his eyes and took a long, drawn out breath. It made sense that a group of people who made it their business to fight evil would have, well, faced something that unspeakably bad. Still, Adilet was right. Kai was here to have fun, and he’d try to not let TOAL’s dark past get in the way of his current adventure. He was doing pretty well last time, at both that and the arcade game. If he kept it up, maybe he could even get the high score before his next appointment?