“I must admit, these ‘video games’ of yours are rather entertaining.” The sound of curses, both profane and heretical, rang out from the screen before a certain dragonette gamer.

  “The tears of sweat lords are the sweetest elixir in the land,” Logan opined dramatically from the sidelines as he watched Dara continue her digital seal clubbing.

  After introducing her to such an old classic, it was only a matter of time before she got her talons into more modern lobbies. And those lobbies were suffering as a direct result, much to both of their enjoyment.

  It started in dribs and drabs, but soon the entire enemy team had backed out of the match. Many of them parting ways with a string of curses fit to peel paint, or at least, that was their intention.

  “They’re all saying the same thing again, no imagination whatsoever,” Dara groused as the match ended with victory by default.

  “Yeah, kids these days can’t come up with anything better than a few racial slurs.” The human simply shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated manner. “Back in my day you got hit with some really wild slurs and insults. The sort of stuff you had to look up on the web or ask a buddy about.

  “But, then again you are in the FPS trenches with the other insult scrub lords.” Logan’s teasing tone caused a pair of ears to flick upright in mock offense.

  The draconic glare leveled his way held a mischievous spark as Dara slowly turned the chair around to face him. The human’s grin was the definition of shit-eating as he slowly nodded to his roommate.

  Dara slowly returned the nod, unsure of where the human was going with this but intrigued all the same. Of course, the instant she gave her assent he was already diving into his closet and digging through all manner of boxes and junk.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  Two hours later…

  Logan’s desk had undergone a rather significant makeover with several controllers scattered across it with wires trailing off everywhere else. It had only served to raise Dara’s eyeridges as she watched the human methodically sort through the veritable rats nest and connect everything.

  His struggles had not been without entertainment either. For as much as Logan seemed to adhere to some plan, everything he was working on seemed determined to never align with it. Something which let Dara learn a few new choice words for useless things.

  With one final check, Logan started up an unfamiliar game on the computer. The appearance of clouds and rugged landscapes far beneath were an oddly welcoming sight to the dragonette.

  Though, no sooner had the pretty view appeared than it was covered by a settings menu. Entire tomes worth of text and little ticked boxes were scrolled through and selected at a breakneck pace.

  More than once he pressed a button or moved one of the controllers before shifting focus to something else. It all seemed perfectly random, and yet…

  After what seemed an eternity, and a few more menus, Logan leaned back from the computer and gave a showman’s flourish. The beautiful view had returned and was somehow even more stunning than before.

  “Sorry about that, I had to enable a few things to make it playable. That, and bind some of the controls for you.” Logan began. “Go ahead and start her up, the tutorial will teach you how to fly this stuff better than I can.”

  Again, there was that shit-eating grin of his.

  With an abundance of caution, and more than a little side eyeing, Dara started up the game’s tutorial. An airfield soon came into view with an assortment of planes and some strange looking vehicles as well.

  Planes were an interesting concept for a dragonette such as herself. She could certainly fly on her own, albeit with a grav-oil belt here on Earth, but not even on her best day could she match the speed of a plane.

  A little window popped up, distracting her from her thoughts. It was a selection of the planes before her, listing their names and various attributes.

  Selecting a plane at random, she quickly found her view changing to that of the ‘cockpit’ of the craft. An array of screens, buttons, and switches filled the space, each with their own label.

  Looking to the new controllers before her, Dara hesitantly took them in hand as Logan gave an assuring nod. With his approval emboldening her, she followed the on screen prompts with perhaps too much enthusiasm.

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  The moment she was told to turn on the afterburners she crushed the given button and the plane lunged forward, far faster than she expected. In the blink of an eye she lost control of it and crashed into another parked plane.

  The resulting fireball was rather impressive, especially once the ejection system automatically engaged. Amused chuckling filled the air as Logan took great enjoyment at her failure, though her startled expression did cause him to tone it down a little.

  “Alright, that was a little mean on my part.” Logan began, his smile not doing his words any favors. “Button mashing might be useful in an FPS or fighting game, but not so much when flying jets.”

  “But I didn’t-”

  “Crushing the afterburner key is a form of button mashing.” Logan corrected her.

  “Oh…but why did I get shot out of there like a, oh what’s it called? A canon?”

  “That would be an ejection seat.”

  At her blank expression, Logan carried on, reciting from memory almost. “It's used for getting pilots as far away from danger as quickly as possible. Turns out its fast enough to fuck up your spine and make you lose an inch in height.”

  “And people willingly use those things?”

  Logan just shrugged at her incredulous expression. “It's that or getting crushed to death or burned alive. Y’know, there was that one jet that used acid as fuel…”

  At the mention of acid, Dara’s ears drooped considerably as her mind drew some rather disturbing conclusions. “I think ejection seats are a great idea.”

  “That they are.” Logan’s grin returned as he gestured to the screen again. “Give it another shot, just ease up on the afterburners while trying to maneuver on the ground.”

  “Alright alright.” she acquiesced, returning her hands to the controls and spawning a new plane.

  This time it was a much smaller one than before, with a sparse cockpit. Carefully following the prompts again, her plane was soon lined up with the runway and ready to go skyward.

  Gently pressing the afterburner button again, she began to build up speed. Dashed lines, lights, and more flashed by as the speedometer climbed. Pulling back on the indicated controller her plane separated from the ground, gaining altitude faster than a blue dragon hopped up on sugar.

  Eyes wide, and a growing grin on her face, Dara slowly began to experiment. Of course, it didn’t take more than a few seconds for a frown to form.

  “This thing handles like a drunken Tirox.”

  “Well duh, it's a strike aircraft. It carries a ton of ordnance and drops it on some poor bastard's head, not exactly something that screams maneuverability.”

  Her unamused glare served only to further Logan’s enjoyment. “Is there anything with an ounce of maneuverability in this game? I did use that saying right?”

  “You did.” Logan tapped at his chin in thought for several seconds before snapping his fingers. “But, y’know- now that you mention it…”

  Reaching over her, he opened a menu and began scrolling through the endless list of aircraft. With a satisfied grunt, he selected one of the stranger looking vehicles.

  “I make no promises for its top speed, but that thing can and will turn on a dime.”

  The name of the aircraft seemed almost appropriate for how small it was. “Little Bird? What does it do, tweet? And how does it even fly?”

  Logan couldn’t help but chuckle, “It's so ugly it repels the ground like all other helicopters out there.” He gestured for her to give it a try.

  Giving him the mother of all side-eyes, Dara began to follow the on-screen prompts. Some of them were the same as the plane while others were radically different. Movement above the cockpit grabbed her attention as the rotors began to spin up. Rather than question the strangeness she carried on with the tutorial’s instructions.

  Looking askance at the controls she ever so gently increased power to the engine and collective. The helicopter almost seemed to leap from the ground, her every touch of the controls moving it about effortlessly.

  With a growing smile of her own, Dara began to put the Little Bird through its paces. It pained her to admit it, but the helicopter was far and away more maneuverable than her even on her best day. Hells, she wouldn’t have been surprised if it could out-compete a Tonselra champion in that regard.

  For several minutes she flew all around the airfield, weaving in between, and even through, various hangars. She was so thoroughly engrossed it took her roommate waving in front of her snout to get her attention.

  “-hey, did you want to try out some of its weapons?”

  “Huh?”

  Logan merely rolled his eyes at her confusion. “The Little Bird is a military aircraft, which means…” he trailed off, letting Dara quickly connect the dots.

  “What can it carry? And does this game have other players?”

  ____________________________________________________________________________

  “You fucking heli-whore! Get out of the city and fight me you lispy bitch!” screamed her rather irate opponent.

  “Where’s the fun in that? It's not my fault you can’t fly between a few buildings.” Dara replied somewhat innocently.

  The veritable frothing at the mouth that could be heard from the other player signaled yet another rage quit. It was the third match in a row with such an outcome.

  “That’s gotta be a record of some kind.” Logan said, admiration slipping into his voice. “Without even a shot fired.”

  Dara merely leaned back in the gaming chair, a supremely smug expression on her face. “I’m just built different is all.” Her smug expression dropped a little as she asked, “That is the correct phrase, right?”

  Her roommate could only laugh in response, “Hah, well you were built to fly and they definitely weren’t! You want to give some of the more open maps a shot?”

  “I’ll stick with the city for now.”

  “Is it because you already forgot how to fire a missile?”

  “...no.”