Side game enthusiasm, you say? Dosellian Urapta, Dennet, and Coremel had plenty of that. They passed by the scene as they took themselves on a tour of all two clubhouses, which they hoped would expand one day into, if possible, eighty-one.

“'Hope' is the wrong word, but it has a pleasant timbre.” Coremel wound up his dream roster with that as he walked up the one step to Team Generic's door and knocked.

Ben I. Sloup opened up, and the visitors elbowed their way past so as to save him the trouble performing a butler's solemn duties. Inside, they observed a scene far removed from their expectations of a group thrilled and honored to have one of its own included in a real game for once. Instead of making use of all the space Construction's unrivaled skill gave them to pin printouts of frame data from target characters on the walls alongside posters for S***** F****** II movies and to set up a dance pad in the middle for all the dancing they ought to feel like doing, the Cadmos crew stood in a long, bare room with pure white walls. The Rares stayed on one side, the Ultra Rares plus honorary UR Hemt on the other, and nobody seemed quite sure what to do with their new headquarters. Cadmos stood in the middle, of course.

Dennet did a lap around the room in case he had missed all the fun. “This is the worst party I've ever been to.”

“Do you and the rest of the World Zeroes go to a lot of parties? My second question is whether W**** H***** is actually the name of a fighting game. I may have made that up.”

“That's a real one, Ulrik.”

“So you admit that you are, in fact, World Zeroes.” King Ostros joined in the mockery Ulrik started, and soon the plain faces mingled in the middle, all of them except Cadmos insulting their guests. As a team.

Dosellian Urapta's plan had succeeded, or at least what would have been his plan if he had thought of it, which he had not. He only wanted to see how they were doing. “How are you doing?” he asked in order to execute his actual plan. “Have you catalogued all of Cadmos's moves? Compared his performance against those of similar characters? Adopted a productive training regimen?”

“We skipped straight to that last one, but Cadmos just keeps jumping,” Ben I. Sloup informed him.

All three World Zeroes nodded deep nods. “That old story. New players always need some breaking in on the jumping thing.”

“I guess so, Coremel.” Cadmos looked less broken than ever, which undoubtedly caused a lot of problems around there. “Those other ideas sound interesting, though. Would you be willing to elaborate on them a little?”

“Of course.” Dosellian Urapta's cheerfulness filled the room far more completely, if less physically, than furniture ever could. All those years of waiting for someone to ask him to elaborate on something at last had their happy result. He ignored what went on in the fighting lounge, since he realized the officers there asked questions as a distraction. Not that it stopped him. “Just to understand what you're working with, it may be wise to copy that table you saw inside the developer building. I'm unsure of the details, however. Were the moves assigned? To f+1, f+2, b+1, and so on?”

Dennet scoffed. “I think you mean 6A, 6B, 4A, and so on.”

“I mean no such thing. You did watch the footage?”

“Only a couple hundred times, but yeah.”

“Well. Does Ersatz Struggle look like an anime game to you?”

“There's nothing 'anime' about numpad notation, unless you want to claim only people who can handle air dashing have the intellectual capacity to come up with such a convenient system and use it right.”

“It becomes less convenient if holding and tapping a direction are distinct commands.”

“Did you watch the footage?”

The bungalow's occupants followed the argument between Dennet and Dosellian Urapta the same way they did fighting game tournaments. As they looked back and forth, they understood that something was going on, but the significance escaped them. They sought a commentator to aid them, and hey, Coremel was right there.

“It's an argument over how best to communicate move inputs in text,” he explained.

“Wait. Why don't they just write that you have to tap the direction toward the opponent and the light attack button then? I think I just figured it out, so don't bother making fun of me.” Hemt T. Elf covered his discomfiture with another question. “I think, and we know how that's been going lately, but I think I get that f is forward. So how does the other one work?”

“Imagine a numpad.”

“That's a bad idea. Now I imagine myself playing Q**** f** G****. I picked Thief for the extra content. Now I don't want to come back to this reality where I'm not grinding my skills.” Ben I. Sloup's fingers went to the work of killing Brigands via keyboard.

Saptres Muria broke through the Q**** f** G**** barrier, saw the truth beyond it, and returned to share his discovery like the heroes of old. “That game may be a classic, but the combat system could use some work. For instance, what if you pressed 6 for toward, 4 for away, 8 for up, and 2 for down?”

“You'd have a system everyone could understand across multiple games, that's what,” Dennet answered.

“I don't remember any kind of indication about how the moves are done. Even so, thanks for the ideas, Dosellian. It's helpful to have an idea where to start. I'll get to work on writing down that list as well as I can remember it.” Cadmos escorted the World Zeroes outside, whereupon they proceeded to check up on the Beruvo squad.

Inorrea Vacationer greeted them at the door. “Check it out. Three of the Super Trash Brothers are here.”

“Did we do something wrong?” Dennet wondered.

“We have committed numerous counts of being better at games than most. Now we must serve out our sentences.” Dosellian Urapta's analysis sounded about right to the other two.

Not all of Freegate's lounges were devoted to the pursuit of predictions regarding grooms and side games, and not only because the Floods had yet to perfect immersible paper. The Eclipse museum remained a place for contemplation of valuable artifacts and how much better you were than the other elements, while the Rare closet continued being a Rare-only zone where guests might perhaps be entertained, but any idea that one of the residents had a chance at an alt never could.

“Too bad about our clubhouse.” Burmin Trivvis recollected with a sigh the layer of Shell Fragments, Chipped Mattocks, and more beside that made Team Generic's bungalow inaccessible in its overflowing material wealth. He entered the closet, made sure it was free of interesting character designs, and called the others inside.

“The hidden condition to letting non-Rares is that you clean up after yourselves before Princess Melban sees the mess. I saw what you did to our place when we decided to count our bribery funds. It was great.” Ulrik followed Burmin inside. “The overt condition is this. Don't steal our dragon picture. You can admire it. It would be both impossible and immoral for us to try to stop you. But don't run off with it tucked under your arm the way you're thinking right now.”

“It is an excellent painting.” Solemn Declaration looked over the key conversation piece of the room and began to admire it as predicted. The bold strokes with which the artist depicted a knight's valiant stand against the dragon's overpowering flames inspired all its viewers so long as their hearts still beat in their chests, even if they had some weird horse heart. “I feel courage and the resolve to do extraordinary deeds arising within me. No, worry not about theft, for the sight of it banishes despicable thoughts to leave only noble aspirations.”

“But everything else in here counters the effect.” King Ostros twisted the capsule machine's handle, rubbed a plastic frond of the palm tree between his fingers, and flipped through a few of the magazines in one of the stands. “I've heard of this style of decoration. It's known as 'We let the Rares have far too much free time-esque.' Fortunately, there's a cure.”

“Not in this economy,” Ben I. Sloup said. “Pigeons above, penguins and primates below. No room for low rarities unless the genii get out again and need capturing. All they can do is help me farm Quivers.”

The two-stars retreated to a three-headed huddle. Six stars! Wow! “I knew not everyone has optimal gear, but I was under the impression URs had all their skills maxed,” Saptres Muria whispered.

“I'm disillusioned too,” Burmin Trivvis said.

“Be elated instead,” Ulrik told him. “We've pierced through the barriers of status and discovered how much we have in common.” He raised his voice. “Ben I. Sloup. What levels are your skills?”

“12, 12, 11, 10, 10. Why?”

“Never mind. I hate all of them.”

“Had enough of your Cadmos impression, eh?”

“Yes. I can't keep a straight face for it.”

The conference broke up, freeing Burmin to address the business at hand. “OK, Dosellian Urapta gave us something that might lead to plans besides the jumping thing and we piled up a pretty good hoard. How much does that get us on the AGN bribe chart?”

“Who cares?” An unsightly bundle in the corner which the guests had taken for laundry jumped to its tiny feet. Glinting orange eyes set in gray, slate-like skin! A swirling strawberry cape! Gloves! Tramda Olex was there the whole time, and what was she doing? “I'm sorry about eavesdropping, but I'm not actually sorry at all. I'm mad. Here I thought you clowns were plotting something significant. An AGN advertising campaign? So what? They don't have anything worth watching. It's all boring news. Where are the reality shows and music videos? Nobody has those now and it makes me sad.”

“Who is this unpleasant object?” Hemt asked. Tramda kicked him in the shin, which he failed to notice on account of the 0 damage inflicted.

“She's a genius!” Ulrik announced. “Tramda Olex, Rare something something, is right. We should eavesdrop more and not feel sorry about it.”

Most of the presumed-handsome squad showed support for the proposition with nods and raised thumbs, but Cadmos frowned. “I'm not sure where that's going to get us before more officers are announced, Ulrik. I don't think anyone's made any plans for us to steal. Maybe we should consider other parts of Tramda's statement.”

Ulrik tossed Tramda out of the room and shut the door. “I don't see why we should. We already know we're going to film a music video. Since the only thing you're good for is starring in things.”