#you get oneshot by everything so your followers HAVE to take aggro

[dbphantom]

this game is so pretty it's not fair

not pictured: lucien clipping through the floor behind me

[deiliamedlini]

WIP Wednesday

I wrote this last night and really don’t know where I’m going with it because I wrote another section of this that’s completely different from this first part, but I’m having too much fun so this might become a long oneshot or like a two/three chapter short fic eventually. I signed into my Guild Wars account for the first time in forever to watch the chat and apparently Lion’s Arch isn’t as interesting as it used to be. Not that any of that is really relevant. 

This is Zelda and the Champions as internet friends playing a MMORPG video game called Hyrule Warriors. 

~

Zelda Harkinian loved Fridays. Not that it was a rare thing to be obsessed with the weekend, but she maybe loved it a little too much. After a week of lesson plans, and cleaning the classrooms, and sneezing students, and emails asking for an extension on a paper that wasn’t even due yet, she relished the escape the weekend provided. Granted, she still had to grade about a hundred tests, but that was a problem for Sunday or even Monday.

Smiling down at her roommate, a kitten she’d raised when she found it in the street all alone, Zelda fed her girl—whom she’d named Duchess because she had every intent of treating her like royalty—and played with her for a bit before throwing down her bag in her room and then grabbed a water and a granola bar before heading to her desk. She flipped her laptop open and booting up Hyrule Warriors, her favorite open world MMORPG.

Her internet sucked, so she grabbed her phone to aimlessly scroll to see if there was any news or updates. But it was pretty dull.

Instead, she thought back to how this whole weekend ritual began.

She’d been in a cavern just off of Death Mountain for about three days killing fire keese, lizalfos, and beamos. As a mage, her AOE skills made short work of the larger groups, hitting them all at once. It was especially useful here because her main specialties were water and light, but she struggled when boss fights came out. The NPCs weren’t great teammates, and she constantly found herself resurrecting far from the boss, only to make a long run with a health penalty that ended with her getting killed again, until her heath penalty was maxed out and she had to restart for any hope of succeeding. As a mage, her light armor made her vulnerable to physical attacks, and this boss was very physical.

Zelda didn’t like interacting with people in this game. It was massively popular, and the chat was always running. Sometimes, she’d just sit at an outpost and watch people talk. Her favorite interactions were often the random ones. She’d begun to look up the acronyms everyone used in chat just to understand them better. WTS= want to sell.

Indigo2421: WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Britneigh4Horses: WTS My mother. 1 rupee. Will pay postage fee.

But after her days of suffering in the lonely caverns in Death Mountain, she relented.

A quick search had her hands shaking, but she typed quickly so she couldn’t back out after she’d hit enter.

xPrincessZx: LFG Dodongo’s Cavern

Holding her breath, she’d waited in the hopes of a private message being sent to her.

One did.

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: What missin are doing there?

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: Mission*

(PM): xPrincessZx: I have to kill the Dodongo boss for the main story

ThunderstruckQueen would like to join your party.

Biting her nails, she’d accepted.

(PM): RockRoast12345: Still need someone?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Yes! That would be great! Thanks!

RockRoast12345 would like to join your party.

That had been how it started: A goron warrior with a Warhammer and some serious defensive moves joined as the tank to take as much damage for the team as he could stand, and a Gerudo Paladin had joined her party. Zelda was jealous of the purchase-only red hairstyle the Gerudo had for her character. She had a sword and shield, but her body flickered with elemental lightening magic. In-game purchase effects.

They’d defeated Dodongo with ease, and had gone on several missions together that day, taking down their storylines with relative ease. But they couldn’t function with the NPC healer who barely functioned at all.

So, ThunderstruckQueen had taken to the map chat and put out a request.

ThunderstruckQueen: I found someone. She’s a Zora Cleric. Level 40

RockRoast12345: Let her in! I want to get this one over with

Rutella Zoran IV would like to join your party.

After that, the four of them realized they worked so well together that they’d formed a guild. The Champions. ThunderstruckQueen paid the guild fee, bought a hall, and began decorating it with merchants, and chests. Zelda still shuddered, wondering what she did to have so many rupees ready to go. Needless to say, she made herself the leader.

Some days, they didn’t play together. Other times, only two of them were on. But on weekends, they all came together.

But it had been a Monday when Zelda played, and she’d been alone. Having already tossed her tissue box across her room in frustration, she debated making a new character with more defense, but she sucked it up and went into the Castle Town map, ready to ask for help. She couldn’t wait until she could get to be a higher level. As it was, she’d only gotten to these level 40 areas as a 32 because of Rutella.

Suddenly, a random Hylian man in green with a fancy sword and shield ran up to her and bowed. Zelda scoffed at her computer screen, unsure if she was supposed to respond.

She didn’t need to.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Hey Princess

(PM): xPrincessZx: Hello?

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Jst wondering if u have a spare flower crown from yesterday’s festival. Missed it. Will pay

Zelda pulled up her inventory, forgetting she was still wearing her flower crown from the Flower Fest. It must have been what tipped him off. In fact, she had four spares.

(PM): zPrincessZx:  Yeah, I do. Come to the chest and I’ll trade.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Thx

She’d never done a trade with anyone who wasn’t in her guild, so she’d felt nervous running to grab it.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: How much u want?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Actually, I’ll give it to you free if you’re willing to help me with a quest? Or 10k.

WildKnightOut2 would like to join your party.

She accepted and watched his character appear in the corner of her screen.

WildKnightOut2: That’s a rip off, btw. Crowns are with 15k at least. Don’t undersell

xPrincessZx: Thanks. I didn’t realize. I’m still kind of new.

WildKnightOut2: Howd u get out here then?

xPrincessZx: I had a run from a friend in my guild.

WildKnightOut2: Got room for a warrior in there?

Zelda introduced him to the other Champions when they’d signed back on, and after a few weeks, Zelda had leveled up enough that she didn’t need to constantly rely on a teammate. But still. She liked Wild the best after ThunderstruckQueen.

They’d brought in a Rito Ranger named TheBestYouveNeverMet, which immediately set Wild off.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: should I aggro a group over so he has to fight them for us?

(PM): xPrincessZx: No! Don’t do that! I’ll get sent over to deal with them!

(PM): xPrincessZx: HEY! I SEE YOU ON THE MAP!

(PM): xPrincessZx: WILD GET BACK TO THE GROUP

On the mini-map, she saw a hoard of red coming at them and rolled her eyes before joining TheBest to kill them with area attacks. Rutella stayed back to heal them, but Thunder and Rock both continued on, unfazed.

ThunderstruckQueen: Wild you’re an idiot

But that was then. This was now.

They’d been together for months as a guild, and now, the six of them knew how the others worked.

If Wild or TheBest took off on their own, no one would follow. They’d both been killed numerous times in an attempt to piss the other off. Zelda had learned to stay with Thunder and Rock. Rutella flitted between running back to revive the idiots, or sticking with the smarter members while letting them heal on their own.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u wound me

Zelda chuckled, but he wasn’t done.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: After all ive done for u

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u leave me to die

(PM): xPrincessZx: Don’t run off next time

It was a Wednesday when she and Wild were playing alone, so they freely used party chat for ease. She’d surpassed his level, and towered as a 93 while he was an 87.

WildKnightOut2: Hang on. Fuzzball wants food

Zelda stared at his character on her screen, wondering if he looked anything like that avatar. Blonde hair, muscular, piercing blue eyes. She’d made her character look like herself, so it wasn’t hard to imagine others had. Plus, he was the only Hylian. She highly doubted that RockRoast12345 was actually a giant rock-man, or that Rutella Zoran IV was a short fish lady.

She knew everything about these people except their names, faces, and voices.

She knew that ThunderstruckQueen was a single mother who called her daughter Ri on chat. She was a chief of police, and had a few hundred of her force to look out for. Still, she wanted to quit soon to join the military reserve forces now that her daughter was getting older. Devoted and loyal, Thunder occasionally snapped when everyone would start fighting with each other, though it was usually directed at TheBest and Wild, the annoyance sometimes extended out to others.

She knew that RockRoast12345 was older than all of them and had a young grandson. He’d bonded with Thunder over their children at first, and then, without meaning to, they became the parents of the group. Recently, Rock had retired from working as a supervisor in a mine, and gaming had become his way of relieving some of that boredom. But he told the best stories when they were idling around, just stories about anything, and they were always captivating. Also, he was afraid of dogs.

She knew that Rutella Zoran IV was the daughter of a politician. She cared for her little brother like he was her own, and sometimes, he took control of her character, proudly revealing that his real name was Sidon. She was in school to be a doctor, and that made her family prouder than anything. She lived and breathed for her family.

TheBestYouveNeverMet was a pilot. His schedule was the most hectic out of everyone’s because of the flights, but he was sarcastic to the core, and sometimes, the sarcasm was simply rude and definitely didn’t translate well over chat. He was superior, and since he’d been playing the game longest, he thought it entitled him to make more decisions. But Zelda knew from her private conversations with him that deep down, he was sweet and caring. He’d always be the first to ask her how her day was, and he’d learned some of her students’ names to ask if they’d been nuisances.

But Zelda spent the most time talking to WildKnightOut2, so she knew the most about him. At first, they’d bonded over the fact that they both had cats. His was called Fuzzball, an orange, fat cat that needed to exercise more. He’d tried to leash him, but Fuzz wasn’t interested. Sometimes, Fuzz would crawl over the keys, send Wild running, and send chat a long stream of letters.

He was funny and made comments in her private chat while they were playing that had her roaring at times.

He was a rock-climbing instructor and in his free time, he was a free solo climber. When she’d looked it up, she’d been horrified to see that he basically climbed mountains without a harness or ropes, and a fall could kill him. She’d asked if he was good at it, or just did it for fun, and his answer had been an ambiguous “yes.”

She knew about his family. He didn’t live near them, but he kept in contact with his grandparents, his father, and his little sister.

WildKnightOut2: k back. Where we going princess?

xPrincessZx: I need to farm for new armor out in the Haunted Wasteland. Do you need to do anything?

WildKnightOut2: I need to help u farm in the haunted wasteland. What do you need?

xPrincessZx: 10 Rubies

WildKnightOut2: damn ok I have 2 u can have so u only need 8

xPrincessZx: Thanks. How’d that party go last night?

WildKnightOut2: Sucked

xPrincessZx: Cool details

WildKnightOut2: If ud been there, ud have hated it

xPrincessZx: Why?

WildKnightOut2: Bunch of self-absorbed idiots. Like TheBest is

xPrincessZx: Lol. He’s not that bad.

WildKnightOut2: if u say so

They headed into the Wasteland looking for red poes that had rare drops for rubies. She and Wild took out a few groups before they started to struggle. Neither could play and talk at the same time fast enough to warn the other that something was happening, and they both ended up at the shrine of resurrection more times than they cared to admit.

xPrincessZx: Hey Wild. This might sound weird, but do you have that gaming app where we could just maybe voice chat?

xPrincessZx: Unless you’re not comfortable with that. We can invite the others, and when we play together, and it would probably make life a thousand times easier

xPrincessZx: But it’s okay if you don’t want to

WildKnightOut2: yeah I have it

Oh, Zelda thought to herself. That was easy.

xPrincessZx: Do you want to add me? I have the same name

She watched her phone like it was food in the microwave, only occasionally glancing at her computer to see if Wild had sent her another message. She drummed her fingers and her leg started to bounce until her screen lit up.

WildKnight has sent you a friend request.

She hastily hit accept and grabbed her headphones from the drawer before typing into her phone.

xPrincessZx: Your name is missing a few things here.

WildKnight: Yeah HW already had someone with this name so I added on

xPrincessZx: The meaning completely changes

WildKnight: which do you like better?

Zelda froze, unable to make her fingers type. Was he flirting? Was that how people flirted online? She was really good at reading body language cues, and that was always how she knew someone was flirting. But this? There was no context! How was she supposed to know?

xPrincessZx: Which fits your personality more?

That was a safe way of getting out of answering while still sounding maybe like she was flirting. Right?

WildKnight: this one

Zelda’s face warmed up and she put her head in her hands, unsure how to respond. How does she respond to that? What if he wasn’t flirting? What if he was.