Hello! This is my first HS fanfic and I'm having a lot of fun writing it. This is really an intro chapter which is why it's so wordy. (at least in my opinion) Be forewarned; this is a DaveJohn fanfic, though if it's just fluff or more has yet to be decided. :)
*****Disclaimer: I don't own Homestuck or any of its characters. This is for fun and not profit.*****
Be the COOL dude with SHADES.
You are now the cool dude with the shades. Otherwise known as Dave Strider. You are currently sitting cross-legged on your bro's futon smashing buttons on a game controller mercilessly. Some would call it button mashing, but you tend to prefer to think of it as a strategic randomness that gives you the advantage on the battlefield. There's a flash of black across the giant TV that's projecting your game and, with one final random tap of buttons, a shining white box appears on screen with trumpets playing in the background.
"YES!" Throwing up your hands, you give into a moment of triumph before recomposing yourself. You push up your shades with a stoic face and accept the loot you got from the latest dungeon you cleared. Normally, you wouldn't be caught dead playing some dorky MMORPG with its silly quests and seriously lame NPCs. But, Bro had gotten it for your eighteenth birthday for some reason, probably an ironic reason, so you had decided to show him up one and play it for, you know it, ironic reasons. However, you hadn't counted on this game becoming super addictive.
The clock down the hall gives of four chimes followed by the squeak of a plush Smuppet. Damn, you've been at this for nearly eight hours straight for the third night in a row. That's like, an entire day of sitting in front of this screen watching your fully customized character run around like an idiot killing monsters and saving the kingdom from internal enemies.
That's nothing. You and your Bro had spent triple that on some other shitty games. If you stopped playing now, it'd look weak. Ha, not this Strider. But, there's no harm in stopping for a breather and some AJ.
You get off the futon and stretch before heading to the kitchen to grab a couple of AJ bottles. Down the hall, your Bro's workroom door is still shut, but you can see a line of light coming from under. He must still be working on whatever projects he had to do for whatever his job was. What was it? Building robots or something? All you know is that the Smuppet thing was sort of a pass-time. A really freaky pass-time that lacked any quality ironicness, or had too much, but hey; if it kept Apple Juice in the fridge and pizza on the counter, who were you to complain? Except when you were up to your nose in plushy Smuppet ass. But that's a different story.
You have to admit you are glad Bro's in his workroom since it means you get to use his unnecessarily large flat-screen TV to play your game on. When he's not, you have to make deal with your normal sized flat screen in your room. No way are you playing this in the living room where Bro could see you play. Fuck that. You'd wait until you reached an insane level before letting your Bro know and then brush it off nonchalantly.
Once back on the futon, you try to find a comfortable sitting position that will last you another few hours or so of game play. Taking a breath, you let your eyes roam around the screen and double check the sweet loot you had just received. You're pretty surprised, not that you show it, but there were some real quality items in your Inventory now, you won't have to sell all of it. One item in particular catches your attention; Holy Knight's Cape. The stats on that item nearly blow your sunglasses off. Nearly.
"Damn." Health +150, Agility +100, Intelligence +20, Strength +100
Whoever heard of a cape giving you Intelligence? You shrug it off, it was just a game. You Equip the cape and gaze over your character approvingly.
You had chosen one of the strongest Classes, the Knight Class and were finally at level 70. Your character, named DJtimeturner, is clad in silver and red armor with his wicked sword at his hip. This being some weird, magical middle-ages type game, the character options hadn't included any eyewear so you had simply donned a simply Knight's helmet that conveniently covered your blond hair and eyes and, with your new cape, looked too cool for words.
Getting back to the game, you decide to head to one of the villages that were spread all around the kingdom to sell some of your stuff since your Inventory was getting a bit too full. It had taken you a while to get use to all the other people running around like noobs, showing off attacks in the middle of the village in their bright colored and usually mismatched clothing items. Sighing in real life, you navigate your character to an NPC that has 'Merchant' stamped above his head. Before you can click on him to interact, a flash of blue catches your eyes.
Using one of the joysticks to move the camera, but not your character, you swivel until you find that bright patch of blue that had seemed to fly across your screen. There, over by a creepy looking NPC selling potion, was an avatar that was clad head to toe in bright sky blue. Its hair was black as far as you could tell and the creator hadn't really paid much attention to the build of their character; it was pretty thin and looked like he hadn't bothered changing the height from the default which is the shortest height in the game. Curious, use click on the 'Inspect' option for him to take a peek at his stats.
"Holy fuck!" You have a blink a couple of times before you're sure the information in front of you isn't going to change. "Holy fuckin' hell."
This dude was more than double your level with stats that you didn't even know could exist.
"Don't they cap the levels anymore?" You mumble as you scroll further down the character's info. The name seems to be WindInherent and he is from the Magic Class with an Elemental Sub-Class. Urgh, you had a long way to go if you wanted to even get to this guy's level. You were too busy grumbling to yourself that you hadn't noticed the blue kid had come to stand next to you and had typed a quick message that appeared as a speech bubble over his head.
W: hello :B
W: hello?
Damn.
D: sorry, i was a bit busy.
You type out a quick reply. It was a real pain using this stupid controller to send messages when a keyboard would have worked so much better.
D: sup?
W: i just wanted to say that i thought your cape was cool :B
W: did you get it in the dungeon with the giant chimera?
D: thanks and yeah. it was pretty easy.
W: hahaha it took me forever to get through that one
D: really? i guess it would be harder for some classes.
You frown at your sentence. That sounded snooty even to you.
D: i didnt mean it like that man.
W: :B its all good. knight classes are super strong. it took a while for me to deal a decent amount of damage.
Sitting back, you wonder why you feel so calm. Usually you'd hate talking to random assholes that showed up everywhere in this game, but this dude seemed pretty chill. It was nice not having to frantically swivel the stupid joystick around an on screen keyboard to type out angry rants at other players who were probably no older than seven.
W: so how about it?
"Shit, what?" You scroll up the chat box in the corner that records what each character says to see what you had missed. That's stupid; he wanted to do a quest with you.
D: you do realize that im like several many levels under you right?
W: its all fine! :B
W: this quest is for all levels, but they say you get partner bonuses if you go in with a group! neat right?
You ponder this for a second.
D: i havent heard of this quest before
W: its super new! only a couple players
W: oops!
W: do you mind if we switch to a PM for the rest of this? :/
D: uh sure
D: do you want me to add you or never mind
A small box pops up on your screen announcing WindInherent has sent you a friend request. Taking a breath, you hit accept before you can change your mind. Almost immediately, another request pops up asking if you'd like to join WindInherent's Private Chat. Accepting again, a chat box opens up in the corner of your screen where normally the public box would be.
W: alright, like i was saying, only a few players actually know about it since the information leaked early.
W: no one was supposed to know for another three days but one of my friends got an early scoop :B
D: is the quest even up yet?
W: yup! we checked it out earlier today to make sure. we just wanted to stock up on healing potion and stuff before we go in to kick some monster ass!
D: you keep saying 'we'
W: oh! like i said, you get a bonus for going in as a group so two of my other friends that play are going. so far its just the three of us :B
D: and you want me to come too?
You raise your eyebrow. It just seemed too odd that some player would randomly come up to you and invite you on a quest that wasn't even supposed to be officially active for another three days. This kid could either be real fishy or just really freakin lucky.
W: well, i mean, you seem cool…
D: cool's not gonna win your quest, bro. i don't wanna be that guy that weighs down the group cause im still some sucky ass low level without a sub-class.
W: no! you wont! i think youd do great in the dungeon. knight classes have a lot of strength and are great melee types
D: dude, chill, its not like this is life or death here.
D: well, at least no real-life life or death or whatever
D: you know
W: i know, but i thought it'd be cool to have you on our team
Another cocked eyebrow. You feel a smirk threatening your lips.
D: sure. ill do it
W: :B
W: YAY!
W: cool. we wont go in until tomorrow and you can meet my friends. can you get on around the same time tomorrow?
Pulling out your cell, you grimace as the white light shine the time in your face. Through your shades, you can see the time is 4:46 am. Maybe if you slept during the day? But there was school tomorrow…or today. You could sleep through a few classes, which was nothing new.
D: sure. but just letting you know, this is hella freakin early for me. ill be up for the butt-crack of dawn and all its shitty morning glory. if i fall down the stairs cause i cant see a damn thing just know it was for this quest. kay bro?
W: …
W: o…k?
W: its super early for me too. its my friends who are on a weird schedule
W: though i guess i cant complain, i just moved so i might still be running on a different time set :B
How happy-go-lucky was this guy? But despite that thought, you again feel your lips twitch. Stifling the feeling, you send another message.
D: really? just how early?
W: its like I dont know around 4:50 in the morning here?
D: your joking?
W: nope. thats what the clock on my laptop says.
D: damn
W: whats up?
D: we might be in the same time zone dude. thats the same time i got here
W: hehehe wow maybe we live in the same place
D: ok that i hardly doubt
W: why?!
D: cause i think i would remember seeing a dorky mmorpg player who plans raids on dungeons walking around
W: i am not dorky!
D: B/
W: well, maybe…but not really
D: im playin dude. but seriously, i doubt the chances of us living within a hundred miles of each other
W: oh well. it would have been cool to know someone else who played this game
W: but i guess i better go. school in the morning
W: or later today…
D: ya dude, see you later.
WindInherent's avatar blinks out of existence and his status goes to Offline. You figure it wouldn't hurt to grind for a bit longer before calling it quits. Selling your junk, you head for an open field that spawns different monsters depending on the hour. It seems like it some weird tree monster of sorts this time around. You make quick work of several before you notice a flashing mail icon on your menu. Making for cover, you quickly flip it open. It's from that blue dude.
"hey dude, forget to give you my friends' character names. they're PsychoticShrink and SquiddleLUV. :B they're both really cool too. oh! and if you have a pesterchum, you can pester me at ectoBiologist. they added a new feature to the app that lets you voice chat and that's what we were planning on using. if you don't want to, its fine and we can still use the PM system. see you tomorrow! :B"
You're a bit shocked that he actually gave you his handle. Had no one talked to this kid about online safety? But, you can't help that you're a bit happy that you get to be part of something that seems even remotely fun, even if it's in this nerdy game. You'll go along with for ironic reasons. But that means actually being awake for it, so you decide to exit out of the game and gather everything you had brought with you. You're pretty shocked you only downed one bottle of AJ, you guess Wind-dude took up more of your attention than you thought.
Instead of putting things where they belong, you simply walk into your room, toss the stuff into a pile to one side of your desk where it is hidden to those that walked into your room. You're already in your red-pant pajamas so all you have to do is remove your shades and flop down on your bed. Tomorrow felt like it was going to be a long day.
Who would have thought that a Strider like you would get sucked into a game like this? Well, if it meant meeting people like Windy, it couldn't be so bad could it?