Hybridization

"Based on interviews and a few eyewitness accounts, we have determined that entertainment varies greatly across the realms. There are of course the theaters and gambling halls but those are so common it's not worth mentioning. No, the truly interesting venues are the gladiatorial arenas that are popular on many worlds. These establishments range from combat theater to underground slaughterhouses with legality being equally variable." – Executive strategy and market saturation meeting, MGM studios.

Kristi was looking at the drink in her hand with a frown. She then looked to Kurt's and that frown deepened. She then looked over to where Val was sipping happily on some fruity frozen cocktail between bites of her wings.

"Regretting your choice?" Kurt asked while taking a pull at his rather large beer. He had seen someone else walking around with one and thought it looked good. "I can trade if you want."

"No, it's just…" Kristi sighed. "Why would anyone put salt on a drink? That just defeats the whole purpose."

Kurt laughed and switched his wheat beer with her margarita. He honestly liked the little mix of salty and sweet. It was normally something he associated with summer, but Kristi jumped at the chance to try one and immediately regretted it. He didn't mind and might even see if the bar could do a mojito, he was feeling a little Caribbean persuasion at the moment.

"You know, they also do sugar on the rim. Or you can get it without either." Val suggested, taking a break from her basket of chicken wings. "Or just use a straw. That's what I do when I'm not feeling the salt."

Kristi's shoulders visibly relaxed after finishing her own pull at the beer that was formerly Kurt's. "Honestly, I didn't even like the taste. It was kinda sour. Also, don't get me started on straws." She shuddered.

They finished eating and spent the time grilling Kristi on what she had against straws. Apparently, they didn't really exist on her home world, and she never got accustomed to using one, so the concept was foreign to her. She said that every time she tried one, it was either too little coming through or too much and she choked.

"Right, what first?" Kurt asked and gestured to the game floor. He was trying to rapidly change the subject after Val suggested what Kristi might like to choke on instead. "We have arcade games, ticket games, prizes and all kinds of meme games."

The arcade they had come to was one of the types where they had a full-service restaurant attached and it became an adult-only establishment at seven in the evening. They watched as several children cashed in their hard-won tickets for prizes before being ushered out the doors by their parents.

"Umm, all of it." Val said in a way that the 'duh' was clearly implied. "We put a lot of money on these cards, I don't think we are running out of play time this century." She held up her card with a thousand 'tokens' pre-loaded on it.

Kristi was still looking around as they walked. "What are meme games?"

Kurt pointed to one of the racing games. "They have Mario Kart racing games." Then he pointed to a few touch screen ones. "There is cut the rope, angry birds and fruit ninja. All popular games that they adapted to arcade format."

Eyes widening, Kristi grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the Mario Kart game. "This one first." He just laughed and followed along, pulling Val behind him. "Winner stays. Best of three." She declared after they got to the machines.

They did in fact play four times. Apparently, Kristi was rather good at the kart racing game and handily beat them. It was a good thing Kurt and Val didn't mind losing since that was all they did. It was hard to be upset when she was having so much fun and her smile stretched from ear to ear. He also found out her preferred driver was Peach, but he didn't get to ask why.

Kurt was pretty good at video games, having played his fair share while in the army, but Kristi was at a completely different level. He knew that she hadn't played in the large arcade version before but after a few moments to adjust to the controls and handling, she dominated the track. It was an impressive sight to watch how easily she beat not only them but also the computer-controlled characters.

Every time she would even start to lose ground to the bots, she would somehow take a shortcut or have the perfect timing to drop an item. Kurt thought it was seriously uncanny how she was able to not only maneuver around the track in the perfect racing line but also fend off the torrent of shells coming her way.

Next stop after Mario Kart was an arcade classic. No, not skee-ball. Val pulled them over to an air hockey table, which surprised Kurt. He figured that she would be all about the games that gave out tickets, judging by the way she had been eying the prize shop while they ate.

"Air hockey?" Kurt asked.

Val just nodded and swiped her card. "Yup, I loved it growing up. There was a table in the clan rec room."

That baffled Kurt. Not that she would like the tabletop versions of sports but that a kitsune clan would have a rec room. "A rec room like I'm thinking?"

"Probably." Val said while getting the puck from her side as the air started up. "We had a big rec area under the communal dining hall on the compound. They had a theater and stage but no movie screen. Then they had a room with billiards table, foosball, older classic arcade games and of course air hockey."

"Huh, that's cool."

Kristi was watching the puck with an intensity borne of curiosity. "How does this work?"

Kurt pulled her over to his side and waved her hand over the tabletop. "Air blows out of these holes and makes the puck kinda float. That allows us to hit it back and forth with these." He held up the paddle.

"Like this!" Val called then smacked the puck, sending it rocketing toward the sideboard to rebound toward Kurts's goal. She clearly intended to surprise him and get an easy point.

Moving off of instinct and aided by his elven reflexes, Kurt easily blocked the puck, sending it bouncing back on a different path. Val tried valiantly to track the puck with her eyes, darting her paddle left and back to try and intercept it. She failed.

With a tink-thunk-clack the puck bounced off the back guard rail near her goal, then into the back of her paddle before bouncing into her goal and dropping down. She looked around for a moment, trying to find the puck before she figured it out. The look on her face as she realized what had just happened was priceless.

"Charlie company champion, three years running." Kurt said with a shrug. His barracks also had a rec room called the 'day room' with some TVs, couches and game tables. Air hocky was also one of his favorites.

Grumbling, though still smiling, Val placed the puck back down and smacked it back toward him. She tried to do a little fake out, acting like she was going to hit one side of the puck but actually drove it straight down the center.

Kurt saw the switch even before she made contact and moved to not only intercept but to also add a little extra velocity on the way back. He swiped out with the paddle, moving from right to left, using the sideboard and perfectly bouncing it behind Val's paddle before she could react.

Once again, the puck slammed into the goal before rattling its way down. "Son of a bitch." Val said, once more stunned that she missed it. "How are you doing that. I can see it but can't move fast enough."

"Hybrid, remember?" Kurt grinned, showing a lot of teeth in a very wolfish smirk.

Val made a little 'O' and then smiled in return. She grabbed the puck and set it down again. "Well, in that case…" She smacked the disk forward again, once more toward the sideboard.

Kurt moved to intercept where it was going to bounce to, or at least the general direction. Just as he set his paddle in place, the puck hit the wall and two of them bounced away. Kurt blinked in confusion then it clicked as the two diverted, moving in slightly different paths. Trusting his gut, he moved to get the one headed for his goal, thinking it was the real one. It wasn't.

His paddle passed right through the illusion, continuing until he hit the sidewall. The other, real, puck bounced off the opposite wall, passed behind his paddle and smacked into the goal. Kurt smiled as he looked up to see Val looking very smug.

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"If we are going to be using powers…" Kurt said then glanced over to Kristi as Val did a little happy dance, spinning in a circle. While she had he back turned, their draconic lover made a slight hand gesture and shot a wink at Kurt.

"Well, it's best of three on this one so game point!" Val said while settling into a wide stance, wiggling back and forth and shaking her butt as she took a ready posture.

"Hmm, game point for me anyway." Kurt chuckled as he set the puck down. Unlike Val, he didn't try to start with a lightning fast hit and instead made a much gentler play, tapping the puck along so it was easy to follow.

Val scrunched her eyebrows as she moved to intercept the puck, also not hitting it hard and only slightly accelerating it back down the table. Kurt did the same, bouncing it back to her as she once more moved to intercept. Back and forth they went, each hit driving the little disk faster and faster until Val hit it from a rebound off the back board and there were suddenly three pucks.

Kurt was pretty sure he knew the one going to the right was fake but that left the one going down the middle and to the left still in play. He couldn't tell which was which but guessed the one going for a bank shot. He guessed wrong again.

His paddle once again passed through the fake just as the true puck, going down the middle, rocketed toward the goal. Val was already throwing her hands up in victory before the puck even reached the goal. She missed the part where it bounced off the invisible barrier that Kristi had put there and rocketed straight back to her own goal.

"Ooohhh Shiii…" Kurt heard her say though his altered perception of time. She desperately tried to get her paddle back on the table, but it bounced after she slammed it down, allowing the puck to pass under and slam into her own goal.

The score board changed to say '3 – 1' and the table shut down, the lights going dark and the air stopping. "HOW!" She yelled, stomping her foot yet gently setting the paddle back on the table.

"Well, I had a little help." Kurt chuckled.

Val turned to look at Kristi, her expression slack and her mouth hanging open. "You traitor!"

"Well, if you hadn't used magic, then I wouldn't have done anything." Kristi blithely replied while looking for their next game.

"B-but he did first!" Val pointed to Kurt with a very accusing finger.

Kristi shook her head and sighed while placing a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "He can't help it. It's not like he cast a spell to have the same reaction time as you or to have the strength and reflex to make use of it. That's who he is and if we have anything to learn from Kurt it's to not be ashamed of who you are."

Deciding that he should come up with a distraction, Kurt stepped in. "So how about we win some tickets?" His words changed their attitudes instantly and they began looking around.

"There." Val said and pointed to a long line of the 'chance' games. They followed her finger to the first in the line, the coin pusher.

Walking confidently up to the machine, Val studied the coins on the tray, as well as the items and token bundles set atop them. She examined it from every angle while Kurt and Kristi watched with bemused expressions. Eventually she stood back up and looked to them.

"I can get a couple thousand tickets here in a few minutes. You go and collect on the other machines."

"Are you sure?" Kurt asked as she swiped her card and a handful of tokens fell down for her to put right back in.

"Yup, I got this."

Kurt just grabbed Kristi by the hand and led her over to the other arcade machines. They stopped and played a few rounds of skee-ball and the basketball games. Both of which Kristi was very good at after getting the hang of how to throw the ball and bounce it in. After a few minutes, they had a tidy sum of tickets and a small crowd of onlookers.

Moving on before they made any more of a scene, Kristi led them to a reflex game that was a wall holding twelve buttons that flashed with lights. It was a simple concept, when the button lit up, tap it. The computer generated the score, and thus the tickets, by how quickly the player was able to react and move to the next button.

This was a game practically made for Kurt, and Kristi screened him with her body as he started his round. His heightened reflex and speed made it almost trivial for him to see the button begin to glow and reach out to tap it. His only struggle was to keep from tapping too hard and breaking the buttons. Controlling his strength when moving as fast as possible was sometimes a struggle for him.

"That was shockingly easy." Kristi said after he finished his round, and the machine spit out several dozen tickets.

"Speak for yourself." Kurt said with a nod at the flashing sequence of buttons. "You try hitting something fast without hitting it hard." Laughing, Kristi scooped up their winnings and they wandered off into the sea of machines, looking for the next game to test their luck on.

*****

Kurt and Kristi had just finished up with the game where a light orbits around in a ring and the goal is to stop it on the single bulb between two posts, when Val returned with a few fat stacks of tickets. "Told you I would get them." She preened while flaunting several shrink-wrapped bundles labeled '250' and '500' with little silver and gold medallions.

"Nice" Kurt said and held out his hand for a high five.

Val smacked his hand and then gave them both a quick hug. "So where next?"

It turned out that they had a whole row of various timing or luck-based games where they rolled the tokens down a ramp, tried to push a key through a hole and of course the claw games. The claw machine was almost a complete bust since they had no control over the tension of the claw, but they managed a small stuffed toy that Kristi just left on the machine.

After a couple hours rotating between ticket games and the fancier arcade games, they decided enough was enough. They went to the prize room to see what they could get with their piles of tickets and after placing them on the scale, discovered they had a hefty sum to spend.

These sorts of arcades, with full-service bars and restaurants, had been a trend for several years, catering to both kids and adults. Naturally that meant the prizes were also catered to both demographics. So, while there were an abundance of toys, candy and other things that were low cost, there were also some more grown-up oriented prizes.

Kurt did a few laps, looking to see if there was anything he wanted to get with their evenly split winnings. He looked at a few examples of drinkware, whisky glasses, beer mugs and such but was already content with his current offerings. Then he spotted a nice, boxed set of grilling tools. Those would be just perfect since his current set was showing its age and could use replacing. He picked the set and wandered off to see what the girls picked. He had been getting flashes of emotion from both of them via the necklace and wondered what that was all about.

When he turned around, Kurt saw Kristi holding a couple things in her hand, looking between them like she was weighing them on a scale. When he got closer, he saw that one was a copy of a video game, and the other was a set of Bluetooth headphones.

"What'cha thinking?" He asked when she glanced up.

"Can't decide between these." She muttered. "I want the headphones since mine are a little worn out and the speaker is going. But I also want the remastered Zelda game."

Kurt thought for a minute and when she didn't speak up, he took that as her asking for his opinion. "Go with Windwaker. You can get headphones anywhere at any time. Hell, I think Frank has a bunch on the back wall of the game shop that you can chose from."

Kristi nodded and put the headphones back on the shelf. "Thanks, hon." She said and darted in to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Did you pick already?"

Smiling a little at the pet name, Kurt answered her. "Yeah, new grill stuff." He brandished the box of tools while looking around. "Let's find Valll… oh, ooookaaayy…" He said, trailing off as he laid eyes on his kitsune lover.

Val had done a few laps of the store, passing by Kurt a few times and pausing just long enough to play a little grab-ass before moving on. He thought she was having trouble deciding but apparently that wasn't the case. It turned out she was actually just picking everything she wanted.

She was holding a plastic wrapped package, with the picture of a sleeved blanket on it, in one hand. In her other, she had a pair of slippers dangling from the hook wrapped over a finger. The rest of her fingers were holding a battery-powered, heated coffee mug.

Along with the stuff in her hands, both arms were wrapped around a stuffed animal. The plush, white rabbit was rather large for a stuffed animal. Kurt estimated that it was about two feet tall without the ears. He didn't include those since he couldn't tell if they stood up straight or flopped as they rested on Val's shoulder.

"Found some stuff you like?" Kurt asked with a raised eyebrow.

Kristi seemed to take particular interest in one item in particular. "Why slippers?"

Val blushed when she saw that both her lovers had only one item. "Well, I kinda got carried away. I was going to put them back, I promise." She didn't look at all like she had been planning on doing that.

"I mean, I didn't really find anything else I wanted so you can have my tickets to cover the extra." Kurt offered.

"Mine too." Kristi added. "I don't plan on using them since the other thing I wanted was a little out of my range."

"Really?" Val looked like she was going to cry, eyes going a little misty at the edges. "That's so nice."

"Of course, now you owe me one." Kristi finished a moment later, grinning at Val as she did.

"Oohhh, that's so… something." Val corrected, leaning away from the sudden predatory look on Kristi's face.

They all moved to the checkout where they exchanged their tickets for the prizes. They had more than enough to cover everything and just passed the unspent remainder to another young couple who were just walking in. After the clerk shoved the bunny in a big clear bag, he tied it off and handed it back to Val, an amused smirk on his lips when she made grabby hands for it.

The walk back to the car was quick and they all hopped in to start the long drive back home. Kurt and Kristi were talking up front while Val had taken the back seat. Kristi was talking about how much she enjoyed the more modern games, comparing them to the fair games at the Halloween event they went to. She said that it was hard to pick which she liked more as the setting was so different.

Kurt agreed and they talked for a while as he tried to ignore the sound of crinkling plastic coming from the suspiciously silent back seat. When they came to a stop at a red light, he turned around to see what his kitsune lover was doing and didn't quite have the words to express his confusion at the sight.

Val looked up from where she was cuddling the stuffed animal, her eyes opening and snapping to Kurt's face. Cuddling might have been the wrong word as the way she was holding it was much more aggressive than a normal cuddle. She had it sitting in her lap with both arms wrapped around it, squeezing it tight as her fingers dug in. The really strange part was the way she was chewing on its ear, gently nibbling as the fluffy appendage.

"Ummm… it's a fox thing?" She offered in a meek tone. Kurt just turned around, looking back at the road while Kristi snorted in amusement.

Seeing her audience wasn't paying attention, Val returned to her mouthy cuddle session, satisfying the fox demon half of her mind with the act. Sure, it wasn't a real rabbit, but it was giving the same soft and squishy vives without the blood and fur. It had to be better, right?