And, on a lighter note, one of the side stories from The Freeman Chronicles. "For Inspiration..."

Set-up for this fic: Noel is also a half-Zentraedi, but she doesn't know it. She was left behind with Dana and Bowie, in the care of the Emersons (well, Rolf, after a while - we never really know what broke up the Emersons in Robotech... Divorce? Death?)

The other new character, Alex, is introduced as a small boy in 2017, a prodigy rescued from what would have been a fatal accident playing in the wastes outside Monument by some of Neol's relatives, though by this time, that event is a distant memory, that he won't remember until 2030. Trust me - this will al make more sense to you, if you read the whole version of The Freeman Chronicles.

*******

Robotech: The Freeman Chronicles
Book Two Side Story
By Stan Bundy


"...For Inspiration..."


"Come on!" Dana called up the banister to her foster sister; "I'm waiting...."

"Do we REALLY have to go to the Galleria?" Noel moaned, trying to her nearly waist-length hair under control. "We could just as easily play video games here."

"As if. There's more to the arcade than the games, sis."

"You mean, like the noise, the boys, or the fact we'll end up blowing our week's allowance in video games that were old when our fathers were still learning how to tie their shoes? That is, _IF_ they were even born yet?"

"What's wrong with a little classic gaming? Or boy watching???"

"Taking both too seriously. Need I remind you that Uncle Rolf's still taking the repairs for that Q-Bert machine out of your allowance?"

"It was only a broken joystick-"

"Yeah - you broke it straight off the cabinet, along with the facing. All because a cute guy beat you, fair and square."

"It was not fair - the joystick was malfunctioning."

"It was working just as well for you as it was for him. 'Not fair' was your attempts to ruin his game by groping him when he started to get a big lead."

"All's fair in love and war - especially when you can combine the two."

"And, you get this from what - you're parents' first date?" Noel finally stepped out of the upstairs bathroom, having braided her hair into a long tail, complete with a couple of pins and an end ring. "I hate to break it to you, but I've heard your dad was a game geek that scared most women off with his geekdom, before your mother tried to kill him."

"Vicious lies from people jealous that he landed a babe like Mom."

Noel chose to leave it at that, not wanting to point out that it was Bowie's aunt Claudia whom she was quoting, from an informal interview recorded in 2013, that his parents had left with him when they went with the SDF-3. She changed the subject back to the mall trip. "What are you going to torture me with this week, other than shopping for clothes we can't afford?"

"Torture?"

"You know... Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mortal Kombat, Burger-Time, Moon Patrol..."

"Oh, you mean what game are we going to play."

"Play's not the word I'd use."

"Just for that, I'll leave you in suspense until we get there. I'll only tell you that there's no chance of me breaking a joystick on this game, and your quick hand reflexes won't do you any good, either."

"Then, how do you play it?" Noel pictured an electronic version of Twister, in her mind, shuddered, then shook it off.

"You'll see when we get there."

*******

Arriving at the mall, they went to the arcade, only to find it packed with persons watching the new machine. From the list of names on the sign-in sheet, a decent number of the spectators were either waiting their turn, or had already had one on the machine. Dana added their names to the list, which had a posted two hour wait time, and they went shopping to kill time.

Noel never actually managed to see the machine, though what she had heard above the crowd noise intrigued her. The game was apparently music-based, ranging in styles from 1970s Disco to 1990s techno. Furthermore, with everyone's attention seemingly focused on the machine's location, not the projection screen usually used for the "game of the month" spectators, then the draw for such a crowd must be watching the actual playing of the game, not the on-screen doings of the players.

The clincher to just what the game used as a control surface came at the shoe store, where Dana bought both shock-absorbing inserts for her current shoes, as well as a pair of traction-sole dance shoes, that were designed to be light on the feet. Dana apparently felt she needed every possible edge she could manage against Noel. Dana's inferiority complex was self-feeding, in that Noel never actually tried to compete with her, but each challenge led to Dana losing, which in turn led to further challenges, and Dana refused to take no for an answer.

After a light lunch (where, again, Noel noted that Dana went for lighter, but high-energy fare, while encouraging her to pig out), they returned to the arcade, arriving ten minutes before their estimated start time. Now close enough to see the machine, it was nothing like any game Noel had ever seen in her life. Each player had four arrows ro make moves on, based on directions from the screen, and possibly other moves as well, seeing as one player they saw used both sides, in a solo game. The whole contraption looked like it would mass a ton or more.

"What is THAT?"

"That, my fun-challenged friend, is 'Dance Dance Revolution' - one of the greatest games to come out during the Global War."

"That's funny - I thought K.C. & the Sunshine Band were from the Seventies."

"They were - the makers of the game used dance music from over three decades."

"Am I seeing things, or are those coin slots labeled for yuan?"

"Your eyes do not deceive. The previous owner imported the machine from Asia in 2001, from a sale of surplus Neasian materials. It used to be in a Neasian military club, before the base was decommissioned as part of their assimilation into the UN government, after the SDF-1 arrived. Think about it - T.R. Edwards himself might have played this game."

"Somehow, I don't think it was his style. Akuma, Balrog or Vega on a Japanese Street Fighter game, on the other hand..."

"You know, sis - you think too much."

"So, where DID they find this game at?"

"The previous owner's estate sale, in Cincinnati - he'd had it in his living room for over twenty years."

"His living room?"

"He used it for exercise - he even had multiple versions of the game installed in the cabinet, to break the monotony."

"How did he die?"

"His video collection fell on him."

"You're kidding... Dana Sterling, tell me you're kidding...."

"I'm serious. A guy I know bought the collection - mostly old laserdiscs like they had before DVDs came out."

"Creepy."

They watched a couple more players, then it was their turn to try the game. They were allowed to practice for one song, then competed for real. Dana tried her best, racking up the third-best score of the day for a head-to-head match - but it wasn't enough.

Their time slot ended with Noel not having missed a step - in fact, the only time she had less than a "Perfect" was when Dana bumped her, resulting in three steps only rating as "Greats". She started to step down from the machine, but the crowd protested.

"Are you sure you want to wait?"

The answer was a definite affirmative, and she returned to the pad, where the owner was waiting.

"Well, what do you have for me to do?"

"Something special," the arcade owner smiled. "In 2010, the old owner of the machine had several custom mods put in, after winning a small lottery jackpot. One thing he did was to get the internal hardware and software for the dozen major variants of the game, and have the machine modified to where you could change between variants by flipping a few switches. Then, besides the normal non-stop modes each had, he had a programmer develop marathon modes, that would work with whichever version was active."

"Marathon? As in a test of endurance?"

"Pretty much. It works similar to the non-stop modes, but progresses through about half the songs in that version of the setup, instead of a handful."

"That doesn't sound too hard."

"Well, that's not all. The later variations of the original machines had what they referred to as 'Oni' non-stops. You start with a few lives, for lack of a better term. Only 'Perfect' & 'Great' steps count; a 'Good' step or worse costs a life, but great scores on a song could earn an extra life or two. Plus, the steps for Oni versions aren't the same or as easy as in the normal modes. The marathon mode works that way as well, except that it works with even the oldest mixes, and is several times longer - about a half-hour of music. You get to be the first to try it out, since you've proven to be such a good sight-reader of the dance moves."

"Cool."

*******

Two Second Mix marathons were shown for the "Sugoi Mode", as the custom software was titled. The mode itself had a one-horned version of a Urusei Yatsura female Oni as its mascot, apparently named "Sugoi", though whether the mode was named for her, or vice versa wasn't clear. The marathons were titled "Hard" & "Soft", the former being mostly the male-lead songs, driving instrumentals, etc. Noel chose "Soft", which was primarily the female-lead pop tunes, with some of the disco-derived music (in fact, several of the latter were common to both marathons).

A list of rules popped up - what the arcade owner stated, except that the initial 3 lives could only be added to by getting a run of 300 steps in a row, and each additional 300 in a row on top of that, if the player keeps that run going. The Sugoi mascot walked onto the screen, and asked "Do you really want to do this?" Noel selected "Yes", and stepped back to begin the contest.

The first part of the marathon was a more difficult version of the smile.dk-centered non-stop from the original version of the machine. Unlike the competition with Dana, though, something seemed to take hold of her, as she slipped into a perfect groove. If the bystanders had paid attention to her face they'd have been more astonished, as by the time the first chorus neared, Noel's eyes were closed. While her body was racking up a perfect score, following a pattern she couldn't even see, her mind was lost elsewhere, a reverie conjured by the music.

I've been searching in the woods
And high upon the hills
Just to find, to find my samurai

Someone who won't regret
To keep me in his net
Yes I need, I need my samurai

She saw an older version of herself on a forested knoll, one of the oddly formed hills in the restricted zone made from the wreckage of New Macross City. She was in the arms of an ATAC officer, herself in ATAC enlisted armor. They kissed, and though she could feel the kiss (despite seeing it in a weird third-person angle), she could not see his face.

Ay, Ay, Ay, I'm your little butterfly
Green, black and blue, make the colours in the sky
Ay, Ay, Ay, I'm your little butterfly
Green, black and blue, make the colours in the sky

One scene faded to another, and she saw herself in a strange suit of armor she'd only seen fleeting glimpses of in her childhood, worn by her Aunt Marie. She was fighting red, dome-headed mecha half the size of a Zentraedi, covering the route of Dana and another, a lavender-haired man, who had their own battle, and seemed not to know of her presence, as they were too intent on their own objective.

Ay, iyaiyai,
Ay, iyaiyai
A-a-a iyaiyai
Where's my samurai?

Songs transitioned, and with each switch came changes in the content of her visions. Some, like "Dub-I-Dub", had little of obvious interest, not even showing people she knew (or at least, hadn't met yet), while others had explicit visions - the passionate sex she saw and partially felt during "Boys" almost caused her to falter on the dance pad, despite the seeming isolation of that inner state from her outer one.

***

Dana, more than anyone else, knew that SOMETHING funny was going on - but what exactly that "something" was, she was at a loss to explain. The surreal scene was really eating at her as the reworked "Kung Fu Fighting" rolled around, and Noel went into a mid-level arms-only Shao-Lin kata, still without missing a step. It was a kata that Noel had never actually been trained in, or even shown, as far as Dana could tell, as Dana had learned it herself months after Noel and Bowie had left training to give more time to their musical education. In fact, she was doing it more smoothly, and with less effort that it took Dana to do it rather badly in class - and she had never practiced it at home, or anywhere else Noel could have seen her.

***

As the cycle of music came to its finale, the visions returned to the subject matter of the earliest ones, providing more details in the last song....

I need to come to the hill on my own
My nights of only dreaming of the future to come...

Visions of many people flooded past her; from past, present and possible future. Dana; Bowie; a geek wearing goggles, all in uniform. Her family, gone these past four years. The handsome, lavender-haired young man from the earlier vision, wearing an alien body sleeve, and a harrowed, haunted expression in his eyes.

The feel of the wind makes me understand
That I will have to face the problems to overcome...

Triplet singers, different only in their hair & eye color. Alien flowers. A massive alien ship exploding in a hurricane of flower petals, as if the climax of some surrealist art film. A phoenix-like energy arising from fields of flowers.

Cause you know we've been in a maze of love
And we are losing control to get away
When I am walking on the hill in this town
Like in the childhood that seems like yesterday

Again, the Macross ruins filled her mind, a secret garden of the recurring flowers hidden in their bowels, accessible only through a maze of crumbling tunnels, carved by unknown hands -or by paws?

If you were here with me
You could feel the way I do now
If you were here with me
You could see what I am looking for now...

As the song finished up, her mind began to clear, and she could sense that the man she had envisioned herself with was near, but not his location. The song had an extended instrumental end, drawn from a remix CD version. Noel quickly caught where she was in the pattern, and would finish it with her own abilities.

Several of the DJ voiceover lines from that from that version were left in the cleaned up instrumental end; after all, they fit with the fact that the person had done the near impossible, their placement seconds away from the completion of the marathon...

"Yes!! You are the king of the world! Your dance will save us all; you know it, don't you?"

Noel finished the song by going into splits, hitting the last two, simultaneous, steps with her hands.

"Perfect - Too Perfect!!!" The game exclaimed, the crowd going wild in response to watching this young girl pull off the impossible.

By this point, what had happened in her trance was a fading memory, though bits and pieces would return slowly, in her dreams. For now, she was just an ordinarily shy girl going on thirteen, reveling in the admiration & attention she had earned.

*********

The final roar of the crown was loud enough to startle people even as far away as the food court, catching the attention of many there.

"What the hell was that?" one diner asked.

"The arcade has a new machine - if you can call something that was almost a decade old when I was born, 'new'," another teen replied, one of the earlier gamers. "It's a dancing pattern game."

"I almost bought that machine, myself," a third added. Unlike the other two, he was a young prodigy. While only a year older than them, he was a post-graduate college student compared to their being high-school seniors.

"Really?" The second teen asked, sitting down next to the third to get the full story from his friend

"Yeah - but I could only free up enough money from my trust fund to buy either it, or the video collection from the estate sale."

"Tough call."

"I figured I'd get more use from the videos. Besides, where would I have put the thing? As it is, I have to keep most of the video collection in storage lockers, instead of my tiny apartment. Any idea who the cheering is for?"

"When I left, a middile-school girl was demolishing the high score, and they decided to stick her up for an endurance run," the second teen replied. "She must have just finished."

"I wish I could have seen that. As it is, I have to get back to campus for a lab."

"On a Saturday Afternoon? You study too hard..."

"I'd have to double my current class load before I'd even have to sweat, Dennis. You, on the other hand, need to study harder, if you plan on taking the TASC Flight School exam next year. I'm still part of the tutor pool, so you can request me if you need help." The young student stood up, and dumped his garbage into the nearby can.

"I'll keep that in mind. See you later, Alex."

*********************

Live out your fantasy here with me
Just let the music set you free...
- Madonna, "Get into the Groove"

It's the music that we choose...
- Gorillaz, "19/2000"