[Special] One year anniversary special

"YO! It's your girl Leona!"

"Hej, Astrid here!"

"Boy do we have a treat for you."

It had only been a few days since the bikini slime video, but already Leona and Astrid were at it again with a new challenge. This time, was partly because of me though. To give some context, a new 96 player battle royal racing game based on the S-Infinity series had just launched, so naturally Leona and Astrid were eager to get in on the trend.

The S-Infinity series is infamous for being a brutal and unforgiving fast-paced racing series where one small slip up can and will cost you the win. I actually had played the games with my father, and naturally, he outperformed me and made it all look easy. Given Leona's racing repertoire, I figured she'd probably be good at S-Infinity, but since she had never played a game in the series before today, I figured it would be a while before she'd get the hang of things.

"So you ever played this game?" Leona asked Astrid.

"Nope. Heard of it though, and Naturally Captain Peregrine since he's in Brawl Bros."

"We better be able to Peregrine punch here!"

Though before the two could start playing, they both had to pass the tutorial.

"WAIT! No items!? But whoa, unlimited- uh, how do I recharge!?"

"You spent up all your energy in the tutorial? I guess- NO! Why didn't I turn right!?"

"NO! I crashed out!"

Yep, these two would not be winning any Grand prix today on stream.

...

After getting through the tutorial, it was time to play online for real.

"Alright, so time for the bets. Since we realized we're not quite... shall we say experts at this game, we'll be modifying our punishments as follows.

"Yeah, instead of loser getting the punishment, the punishment will now only be enforced if we crash out. And as for what it is, for every crash, an eyebrow gets waxed, but since Astrid's got no hair or eyebrows left to wax off, she's gotta chug a whole wasabi tube per crash."

"And naturally, if Leona runs out of eyebrows to wax off, we start waxing off her hair. Place your bets now whether she'll be bald as me by the end of this."

The first race was a standard vs against 94 other racers and went smoothly for the two, if you call finishing 50th and 43rd respectively, a good performance.

"Ugh, you bring the salmiak? I wanna down some after that lousy race," Leona grumbled.

"My, to think the Maria raceway queen would struggle so much," Astrid snickered.

"This ain't Maria raceway! Heh, I bet even Shadowmaster's struggling."

Leona was dead wrong on that claim as she soon found out when she checked the leaderboard.

"NUMBER 1!? BULLSHIT! THIS GAME'S HARD AS F***!"

"He's been playing the originals. In fact, if he's in the lobby, give up all hope of 1st place," I sighed.

Though since he was watching Rina for the day, he should be a bit preoccupied... or not. As I logged on, I noticed him in the lobby with us as we started a grand prix. The first race went well, but in the second race, Astrid nearly wiped out, but managed to recover. Then, the third race happened.

"Ugh, this course is so twisty," Leona groaned.

"But my Wind panda can make turns much easier."

In the game, placers could choose between 4 vehicles, the fast but fragile Silver Badger, the balanced Indigo Peregrine, The sturdy Deranged Duck, and the fastest car in the game, the Wind Panda. Each car could also boost a certain amount of times and recharge health at different speeds. For example, the badger could almost instantly recharge it's meter fully upon entering a pit area, while the panda would barely be able to recharge a boost's worth of power. Worse, it also used up lots of power while boosting, meaning players had to be careful when using it.

Astrid had been doing well with it, but on this course, she got a bit greedy.

"Ugh, I barely recovered jack shit. Guess I can't- Hey! Stop smacking me!"

Another thing about this game was that other players could attack you. Worse, as the laps went on, more hazardous CPU controlled obstacles would appear and could really mess up your run.

With only a lap to go, Astrid was on the ropes, but the got a lucky break by accessing the sky road allowing her to leap into first place.

"Yeah! I'm getting first place day- Ugh! Why are there so many purple egg cars!? Ah! No, no, no! I don't have power! Just a bit more and I Ye- NO! WHAT THE F***!?"

Astrid had come so close to winning the race, but after ricocheting into some purple egg cars, she had lost all her power, allowing Shadowmaster to KO her right before she crossed the finish line. That loss was gonna sting her for days.

As Leona and I finished the race, Astrid grabbed a tube of wasabi and angrily began chugging it. Which proved to be a bad idea as she quickly began coughing.

"That's going in the highlight reel," Leona snickered as the fourth race began. Unfortunately for her, this race would be where she bowed out, but not in the same manner that Astrid did.

"Alright, almost there, wait why's this thing- Why's it zapping me- RANK OUT!? WHAT THE F***!?"

Another thing that made this game infamously hard is that after each lap of the race, the bottom 5 players would always be eliminated. While it wasn't technically crashing out, it was still just as bad.

"That counts as not finishing, so one brow down, one to go," Astrid snickered as she smeared some wax on Leona's left eyebrow before ripping it off.

"YEEOWCH! How the hell do you wax your head daily!?"

"The same way you somehow eat all that nasty wasabi daily."

"Well, let's exit out and do a new Grand prix. Huh, why aren't you leaving, Crow?"

"Cuz I'm still in the race," I stated.

Leona and Astrid blinked in shock and watched as the fifth and final race began. What had started with 96 racers was now down to just 20. I had no chance of beating my father, but I could at least get a good score. I had raced on the track before as a kid and knew the ins and out, so much so that I managed to pull off an impressive 1st place finish. Of course, my father naturally won the whole thing, though it was nice to disrupt his perfect streak.

Leona and Astrid weren't happy though. "Oh no fair! How'd you get so good at this game!?"

"Uh, been playing since I was young?"

"That course looked insane! How'd you pull off all those twists and turns perfectly!?" Astrid shouted.

"Believe it or not, this is far from the hardest course in the game."

"And what is that?"

"Lava lake."

The two would soon learn what I meant in the next Grand prix. This time, they managed to make it all the way to the end, and got to experience the full hell of Lava lake.

"Oh come on, I can't even make the turns in my panda!" Astrid fumed.

"Ah! Where's the pit area! I need fuel!" Leona cried.

Poor Leona ended up losing her other eyebrow due to not knowing where the pit area on the course was.

"Well this game's going on the shit list. So you feeling tired, Astrid?"

"Not at all. Down with getting patches of your hair waxed if you crash out?"

"Consider me motivated to the max to get good at this shit!"

The two ended up playing for hours. Astrid ended up having to chug through two more tubes of wasabi while Leona ended up getting a small patch of her hair waxed off. Luckily, it wasn't in a very noticeable spot, and Leona could easily just cover it up with her hair.

When we eventually returned home, we found my father cradling a fast asleep Rina.

"You kids really played late," he chuckled as he laid Rina on her bed.

"And you were merciless today," I replied.

"Not quite. I was babysitting and couldn't focus fully. That's why I lost to you on Noise."

"You know I've always grasped that course better than you."

"Well, we'll see tomorrow. I hear the game's getting mirror courses with remixed course layouts."

As my father left, Leona lounged in her chair. "That game's a pain in the ass. Hard to believe you're actually good at it."

"It's the one racing series I'm good at. I actually have all the games. Wanna stream them?"

The grin on Leona's face told me all I needed to know. "You know I'm ready, so bring that shit here tomorrow."

"Haha, naturally," I smiled.

[End]