Sega Hard Times

 Sitting against the brick wall exterior of her elementary school, a young blonde girl sits alone on the blacktop ground like she does every recess. Pushing her all too big glasses up as they constantly make a break for sliding right offer her nose, she leans over her large book as if to hide its contents from the sky above, her rapturous attention to its pages and pictures meaning she paid little mind to the soft sounds of footsteps approaching her.

"Why are you always reading that big book?" a high-pitched bubbly voice asks the young girl.

Startled by the attention, the blonde sits up and clutches the open tome to her chest, realizing only a second later that the classmate in front of her seemed genuinely curious rather than someone here to tease.

"Um, well, I really like it," she starts, the other girl leaning to try and hear the quieter one. "It's full of stuff about the Sega Mega Drive, like all the games and stuff you can do in them."

"Video games?" The girl asks, standing back and making the blonde girl flinch with the tone of the question. "That's boy stuff," she says dismissively before looking back at the other kids at play. "Don't you wanna go play freeze tag... or foursquare?"

The blonde girl shakes her head, her glasses bouncing as she did. "I'm not good at those games..." she says, noticing the other girl continuing to stare as if the answer wasn't enough. "B-but... maybe you want to look at my book? It's got a lot of cool things in it... like there's a Barbie game for the Genesis," she says, flipping through pages to try and reach it.

"Barbie Super Model, you get to play as Barbie as she goes to different places for fashion shows. You get to choose different outfits for her, and makeup, and you get to practice how she'll perform when she's-"

"Oh, I don't care about that." The other girl says, somewhat aware of how harsh her words were with her apologetic expression. "I was just trying to be nice talking to you." The words were from an innocent place, the girl too young to understand how they cut, and believing she had done something good in even speaking to the quiet girl in the glasses, she begins to run off to join her friends who were watching from afar.

"Wait!" the blonde girl yells as she gets to her feet, thrusting the book in the air with its pages wide open. "The book says Barbie Super Model is the perfect game for your demographic!" she calls out, only to hear the laughs of the other girl's friends and snapping the book shut in shame. The one who spoke to her stares a while longer, a little torn as she sees the blonde girl's sad expression, but soon she slips into the fold of the other kids, forgetting the conversation even happened as the blonde girl is left to retreat back into the book...

That day after school, the blonde girl's parents weren't surprised by how quiet she was. A few questions were hazarded during the car ride, but her nose was stuck in the book as she refused to answer any of them. When they reached home, she was the first one in the door, pushing it open and running off to the T.V. where the Sega Mega Drive was set up. With practiced precision she set the system up, having things running before she moves to a shelf and pulls a dolly down from it, looking at the ragged toy before setting it down carefully next to the player two controller.

The blonde girl settles onto a cushion as Barbie Super Model starts up on the screen, but suddenly the quiet young child begins to speak. "The first level of Barbie Super Model is a driving one, so you gotta be careful you don't hit the other cars. There's some bags in the road that you want to hit so you can do the makeup and dressup games, but you don't got to do them. Only the catwalk part is important and you don't even have to win at that." The silence hangs for a second as the child plays, sniffling before she intentionally veers Barbie's car into traffic.

"Oh no, you hit someone! Don't worry, you only lost one heart, and there's some hearts laying around you can get to heal up. They're pink and got a B on them, I can help you get them." The child's parents peek around the corner into the playroom, recognizing the setup and not saying a word to her.

"I really thought more kids her age would have been interested in coming over to play that thing," the father says, rubbing the back of his hair with a sigh.

"Her cousin loves it, but you can't predict what kids will like," the mother says reassuringly, grabbing her husband by the arm to lead him away. "I'm sure some day she'll find someone she can relate to. She's just got to come out of that shell."

"The next level is a beach one where you roller skate..." the young girl continues, oblivious that her parents had even been there. With her book open to the side to tell her what to say, she'd make her fun tonight, and with the memory of the girl at recess going away, her mood soon improves and her night at least ends with her smiling.

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The third day in a row she had to stay home from school, and the young sickly girl didn't even feel up to groaning today. Her Game Gear's batteries had died again, and with its screen dim and dark, all she could really focus on was the slow crawl of the sun through the shutters. She wanted to put her pillow over her eyes, but that would mean removing one of the pillows from the pile she was resting on. Her head felt like a big stone that hurt to lift and even more to set down, so she squints at the encroaching light and grumbles, the noise alerting her parents in the adjacent room she's awake.

"You feeling better yet today, honey?" her mom says, looking like she hadn't left her bed willingly herself.

The sickly girl just made more rumbling noises, her dad poking his head in and looking around the room, "Did I leave the lawnmower running?" The joke got a small laugh from his daughter, the sickly girl willing to turn her head enough to look at her parents now as they enter the room properly.

"Another day home, huh?" the mom says, trying to mask her exasperation as she begins to pull out a set of medical equipment to see how her daughter was doing. The sickly girl used to flinch at the sight of them, but you get used to something you have to see every day.

"You sure you don't want to give home school a crack?" the father asks.

"You guys aren't home enough for it," the child mumbles.

"We'll be home tonight. I'll grab some of my old college textbooks then and we'll get you started on Calculus!" The girl didn't quite get the joke, but she still laughs, just happy to have the energy in the room. As she limply allows her mother to get the readings on her temperature and other things she still didn't understand, she knew the time was running out.

"I have to work a late shift tonight honey," the mother sighs, starting to rake fingers through her messy hair as she was aware she wouldn't have long to tidy up. "So your father's going to have to make dinner."

"Yuck," the child said, sticking out her tongue specifically to get a rise out of her dad.

"You two just don't appreciate my black bean stew!"

"They were brown when you started making them," the mother adds with a small laugh, the two weary but playful enough as they stand and begin moving away from the child.

"Don't..." she says, trying to say something more but feeling bleary as she tries to move to grab her parents.

Her mother grabs the hand only to put it back onto the bed, noticing the Game Gear to the side and moving to grab some batteries as she spoke. "You know we want to stay, but you've got an appointment Thursday and Saturday and we both had to take a day off for those."

"I don't care." the child says grumpily, trying not to tear up. "I don't want to be alone."

Her mother seemed exasperated by the request, looking at the clock and eager to get moving, but the girl's father crouches beside the bed, taking the Game Gear and starting to put the batteries in that the mother had just left on the bed. "Well, I can't be there for you kiddo, but maybe I can make your day a little more fun..." he says, fishing into his pocket and producing a small cartridge he popped into the system.

The sickly girl's eyes light up as the screen shows the words for Super Columns. "There's another one?" she asks, energy creeping into her own voice for the first time as she grabs the Game Gear hungrily and looks down at its glowing screen.

"And this one's Super! You'll have to tell me what they changed to make it so special!"

As the child was already digging into the game with a bright expression on her face, the mother grabs the father's shoulder and leans in for a whisper. "What are we gonna do now for her birthday?"

He pats her hand with a small smile, "I'll pick up some stuff for some Fettucine Alfredo. That should be special enough." Standing, the two parents move to the door. 

"We'll see you later, honey," the mom calls out, but the sickly child was already a world away, one where her body didn't hurt, one where her room wasn't so dark and dingy, and one where it didn't matter she was alone. Right now there was an evil merchant to deal with, and rather than being the girl in bed who could barely move, she was the only one whose power to match jewels could save Phoenicia.

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A young preteen girl sits in the corner of the orphanage, looking at the board games spread out in front of her that no one had taken her up on playing. To be fair, she knew why this time: they were all too excited. It was a hustle and bustle she had grown used to, so she sits back in her chair, arms crossed, grumping at the ceiling light as if it was responsible.

Suddenly, a smaller girl, looking much like her down to the black pigtails, runs into the room. "Hey come on already! There's some new parents here to look at us!"

"Well they won't be picking me!" the preteen says, trying to look angry instead of upset in front of her little sister.

"Yeah, they can't pick you if you aren't there!" the little girl shouts, grabbing her sister's hand and trying to lead her out, but the preteen girl... after being pulled out of her seat and stumbling a bit, manages to stand her ground.

"But they won't pick me! People don't want grown up kids."

"You're not grown up," the little girl says, "You act like you're younger than me!"

The preteen girl sticks out her tongue at her sister before quickly sucking it back in, realizing she was being immature. "It doesn't matter how old I really am! I'm too tall so I look like I'm grown up! Everybody just wants cute babies or the kids who are cute but not in diapers so they can skip that nasty step. A girl my age is too much work!"

The little girl seemed to be giving in, "Okay... well, if you're staying up here, I'm staying too."

"No no no! You gotta go! Go find a new mommy and daddy!" the preteen urges, pushing her little sister out, "You're still adorable and fun! Don't end up like your old maid sister!"

The little girl tries to resist, but now she was the one being pushed around with ease. Once her older sister had her by the staircase though, she turns back and looks at her. "Okay sis... but I'm gonna go make them want me and then tell 'em I got an awesome sister they should get too!"

The preteen girl laughs, putting her hands on her hips and amused by the spunk in her sister. "I don't think people go for buy one get one deals at an orphanage, but you're cute enough they might! Now get before they leave!" she says, pushing her sister along before turning back to the playroom and immediately sinking back, the truth heavy on her. There was no way they'd be able to stay together, but it would be months before her little sister did get adopted. Today, the preteen would just get to wallow in the general issue of being too old for adoption.

Heading over to the T.V., she briefly considers watching something on it... but the Sega Saturn in front of it calls to her instead. Few kids touched it, meaning she got in a lot of time with it, and so she pops in a Virtua Fighter disc and begins to play, trying to pretend she couldn't hear the excited voices downstairs... until pretending wasn't enough and she turns the volume up.

The extra sound demanded attention though. As the girl began to play, picking Wolf because hubba hubba that polygonal barrel chest, she nearly leaps out of her skin as someone comes up next to her. "What are you playing?"

The young boy who asked jumps back in surprise at well, but after a second of realizing she wasn't in the room alone, the preteen looks back at the screen and clears her throat, "It's Virtua Fighter. You just kinda press buttons and hope you beat up the other guy," she explains poorly, but rather accurately to her experience.

"Your guy looks like a wrestler!" the young boy says, sitting down to look at the screen as Wolf was getting beaten up by the AI. The preteen looks between the real boy and the men on the screen and picks up her controller, starting to mash her buttons to fight back.

"He's really strong though. Sometimes he does some really cool moves!" she calls out, and a few seconds later... she lost the round, but she would eventually get to show him some awesome moves that got him to gasp and cheer. While the preteen girl certainly could have thought of a few better ways for the day to end, she had to admit, just having someone pay attention was a nice way to spend the night.

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"Hey FATLIP," a pink-haired girl shouts.

"Hey DUMMY," a scrappy young boy calls out. The girl was dressed in a white dress that she seemed to be resisting as she run, the edges torn already as she runs to the grass lot beside the gated community. The boy was dressed in a muddy jacket that matched his own splotchy face, but to close the gap in their conditions, the pink-haired girl quickly tackles him to the dirt, the two rolling in the grass and staining clothes and dirtying skin as they scuffle.

By the time they stopped fighting, they were panting, scratched, and smiling like they had just seen the presents under a Christmas tree. "You found me!" the girl calls out.

"There's not a whole bunch of cages full of rich brats!" the boy laughs, getting a punch to his now sore shoulder for it.

"I don't want to be in there with all those boring penguins!" the girl says, crossing her arms. "Everyone's dressed so boring and don't do anything fun. They just sit and TALK."

"Yuck!" the boy says, sticking out his tongue. "Well, guess what? Tubby found a bunch of possums near the tracks! We're gonna see if we can feed 'em a bunch of garbage!"

"Do they eat garbage?"

"I dunno! I didn't even know what possums were til I asked my ma!"

Before any further discussion could be made about possums though, there was a shrill scream. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT BOY!?" A middle aged lady dressed in a bright blue dress and adorned in far too many bracelets reaches down and grabs the pink-haired girl's hand.

"FUCK! SHE FOLLOWED ME!"

"Don't you say those words, young lady!" the girl's stepmom cried. "And you, what are you doing out here?"

"She's my friend! I'm not going away just because you took her to your stupid rich people neighborhood!" the boy says, but the stepmom's harsh look was more powerful than his youthful rebeliousness.

"You're lucky I don't know your parents' phone number, Phillip," the stepmom bites back.

"We don't got a phone no more," the boy replies as just a matter of fact, earning a look of revulsion from the stepmom.

"Lemme go! I don't wanna go back!" the pink-haired girl yells, trying to yank her arm free, but she was far too young to overpower her stepmother, and soon she was dragged in through the front gates and off towards her new home.

"Why must you hang out with riffraff like Phillip still? You can make much better friends now," the stepmom says, her voice calmer and more exasperated now that she wasn't trying to scare off the young boy.

The pink-haired girl crosses her arms, "I don't want to play pianos and ride horses like a boring schoolboy. I wanna go back and play baseball with the boys! And hang out with my mom!"

 

"Your mother wasn't even feeding you right! You have to realize that she wasn't fit to take care of you."

"But she loved me..." the pink-haired girl grumbles, looking away so her welling tears weren't as obvious.

"Your father loves you too, and you have a better life here! You don't need to hang out with the other kids here, but at least try to find something that doesn't leave you so... ragged." The stepmom opens the door to their house, releasing her stepdaughter now that the door was closed behind them. "Why don't you go play that Dreamcast your father got you?"

"I don't want to play with that baby toilet!"

"It's not a toilet," her father calls from the kitchen, "The disc goes in that spot so you can play the games!"

The pink-haired girl shouts back to the other room, "I don't care, I'm gonna go sit on that baby toilet and-"

"Language!" the stepmom shrieks.

"I got a whole bunch of language for you!" the girl yells, running off to her room and sitting down in front of the T.V. She looks at the Dreamcast in front of it and the games piled next to it, wanting to just break it apart, but before she can get started, her dad steps into the room. 

Pleadingly, he moves to the pile of games and starts holding them out in front of her, "I know this new life is hard to get used to, but I think you'd really like some of these games if you tried them! This Soul Calibur one... it's got swords and stuff in it."

"...Swords?"

"Yes! Not wooden ones either," the dad says, starting to remove its shrink wrap so he can put it in the system. The pink-haired girl watches the starting screen, enraptured as characters wielding real weapons prepared for battle. She didn't notice when her stepmom entered the room, but the two parents watch as the young girl starts her first battle, flinching and moving about wildly as she tries to make her character attack by putting her whole body into button presses.

Looking at the screen, the stepmom puts a hand to her chin as she thinks. "Maybe your friends would like this game too?"

The pink-haired girl's eyes light up as she turns to look at her stepmom. "Are you saying they can actually come over? Aren't they too gross?"

"They can come over only if you all promise NOT to be gross and just play your video games."

"Oh man! I'm gonna kill Fatlip in this! He always sucked at sword fights!" the girl giggles in glee, turning back to herself losing and quickly trying to figure out what was going wrong. It wasn't going to be a smooth playdate system, but soon, the family would grow used to the visits and not have to worry about the pink-haired girl running off to get dirty and play in dangerous places. She had found something new to feed her rugged urges, and she revels in the action on screen as she slowly feels out how to be the killing machine she knew she could be in-game.

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A video tape rewinds to a scene that was growing increasingly familiar to the two people in the room. In the world on-screen, cameras flash and people cheer as a young slender teen steps up, dusting her legs in chalk and dressed in a tight leotard. Her face was blank and serious, eyes focused on the lane in front of her as her elderly coach could be seen on the edge having all the nerves you might expect of someone competing in the Olympics.

She was the picture of calm though, not because she was professional, but because her mind was elsewhere. It could be seen in her eyes that her focus was one something inside her head rather than the act in front of her, but with practiced movement that seemed almost automatic, she runs forward, hitting the spring board and leaping up onto the vaulting table. Launching herself up into the air, she twirls around in corkscrews as she seemed to almost defy the amount of hangtime you'd expect from a human body, rolling over until her feet hit the mat before her, pushing her body up so as to stick the landing. Her arms raise up in the air, but her empty expression did not match the energy of the gesture, the crowd cheering and the judges rating her highly but her spirit seeming to be miles away...

"You know, you can try and like what you do..." the old man says as he pauses the tape.

The slender teen sits at her sound deck, not even watching the tape this time and only indulging her grandfather by having only one ear covered by her headphones. The Master System before her was hooked up to her computer, the girl playing with knobs to alter the sound of the backing track from Out Run that she had just ripped. Even though her eyes were focused on the soundwaves on screen and her attention was on the changing pitch, she was able to pull herself out of her devoted attention to look back and reply, "Not really."

"I'm just saying..." the old man trails off, "If you had looked more passionate, less rigid, I bet you would have done better than bronze."

"I don't need to do better than bronze," the slender teen says, trying to tune him out and turn back to her work. "I want to be doing this. I already made good on my promise to grandma."

"Grandma wanted you to win," the old man says, realizing his words were harsh when the slender girl tenses and stops her work. "I mean... she asked you to do your best... and make her proud. She'd be so proud if you could get the gold!"

"I'm sure she's proud of my bronze..." the slender girl trails off, lowering her headphones over her ears and turning the music up much louder than even she liked. She just wanted her grandfather to go after digging at her insecurity, she just wanted to enter her zone and be alone with what she was creating, what the Master System allowed her to do with her sounds and music...

"You're good, really good, and we both know you could do better if you put your heart into it instead of... whatever you're doing there. You've probably only got on more summer of competition in you before you outgrow Vaulting... can't you just try and make it the one you win?"

"Grandma might not make it that far..." the slender girl says, hanging her head. "Just... let me work here. I'll compete. I'll practice. I'll do what I have to."

Her grandfather looks at her for what felt like ages of silence, but soon he nods, grunting as he gets to his feet and turns off the T.V. "Alright. Don't stay up too late with this then. You can injure yourself if you vault while tired."

As her grandfather left the room and the burden of her promise to her grandmother left with it, the slender girl plunged back into her work, back into a world that made no demands of her, where she could be alone to explore and feel out how she wanted things to be. She was in control here, rather than being controlled by her obligations to others.

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For some of them it was tens of years later, for some, only a few.  Children and teens who had grown into adults over time, had moved on from the troubles of youth, had become adults in control of their own life. Five girls, five histories with Sega, their source of escape and joy and many other positive moments in life when they were needed.

Once they were a blonde girl, a sickly child, a preteen, a pink-haired girl, and a slender teen. Now, they were Mega Drive, Game Gear, Saturn, Dreamcast, and Master System. Now, they were smiling as they sat in a room together. Mega Drive was reading that book from so long ago, but when she piped up with interesting trivia she found within, the girls responded. Game Gear relaxed, head clear and spirits high, as she had finished the treats DeMonde had provided for the Hard Girl get-together and was now content to just watch the others play. Saturn was playing the system she was named for, struggling to compete with Dreamcast but still happy that everyone was gathered around to watch her play. Dreamcast was relishing in the chance to beat up her friend in the game, taunting her and laughing as she connects in the best way she knows how. And Master System, not obligated to spend any time with them if she so wished, stood on the edge, interjecting when she pleased and free to sit back and relax with her music if she wanted.

There was no special occasion. No work-related impetus for this meeting. These girls just wanted to be together today. Many years ago, Center-Sensei had learned of their histories, of their strong emotional ties to Sega, and while his heart wasn't in the right place due to his state of mind then, he had united five girls who all had their hearts in the company for one reason or another. Today though, even if the  game system hadn't been there, the girls would have been happy for more reasons than they realized.