Too many fandoms, too less time

Alright, Standby in the Center of the stage!

was the announcement of the game, showing some additional safety tips while the cabinets load in the map.

"It's your funeral dude", Charlie sights before turning his attention back to his screen. Despite the clear rule to ask him beforehand in case someone wants to pick a song to avoid any and all Boss Songs, but here they are.

They avoided Let me see you Dance thanks to Arora asking before not choosing the song, but couldn't avoid the OG boss track thanks to Hemlock.

Arora and Hemlock don't even know what's coming up, let alone how to play the game, now standing on the dancepads next to him, about to face one of the infamous two boss tracks that challenge even the most skilled players.

And this is their intro to one of Charlie's favorite rhythm games.

... And a chance at an EXC for himself.

Not to mention hearing the small crowd of regulars and fellow Dancerush players who know Charlie not from his band, but from the hours spending time together in this very arcade grinding the songs in search of high scores and style, cheering his player name in-between the people cheering for him, Hemlock or Arora.

This is not Charlie Disco from the famous band Dead as Disco for them.

This is Undead_Dancer, Dancer mostly for short, a fellow DRS player and one of the aces of the arcade in the game.

They want to see that EXC coming from their fellow player.

Ready? Go!

The game announced and the song begins.

This is it - no return to the menu for any of them.

Both Arora and Hemlock definitely were into for too much that they can handle.

Missed steps, broken combos and a lot of shouting in frustration by both of them, but both of them held on decently. Arora moreso than Hemlock due to her being an AI.

Meanwhile with Charlie it was full on concentration. The steps and improvised flourishes sharply matching the song, each step, slide, down and jump lighting up the pad beneath his feet and the screen in front of him with perfects while the driving beat was basically fighting him like in a boss fight.

One Great or lower and the EXC is gone. Maybe even forever. But that's not a thought Charlie spend even a millisecond on.

The crowd around the four cabinets was getting louder with each section of the song played through, cheering the three players on.

The last note of the song came up and with it, the results a few seconds later.

Both Arora and Hemlock managed to get through with the blue CLEAR flourish on screen signaling that they made it through, with three stars and one star respectively and both are out of breath and visibly trying not to collapse immediately, but they made it, the crowd around them cheering for both of them loudly.

But the cheers were the loudest at the most right hand side of the crowd as the neon pink and yellow EXCELLENT flourish came up on screen at the end of the song, making not just only the crowd jump up and scream in excitement, but also an overjoyed and happy, although also frustrated, scream came from Charlie himself.

"Goddamn FINALLY!", a mix out of relief, frustration and exhaustion made itself immediately noticeable in his voice as the results showed up. "Holy shit, this took ages!", he shouts, before letting out an exhausted scream after shortly crouching down on the dancepad in disbelief.

Prophet and Dex, who were watching the entire thing from a distance were sorta impressed. Prophet definitely moreso than Dex, but that's not saying much a lot of times.

Meanwhile Charlie's currently getting swarmed by his fellow arcade players congratulating him on the result, especially some of the other players who got through the same song earlier, while the rest of the band's waiting to get over to the bar of the Arcade to pick up something to drink and take a break.