Mina carefully slipped the impressive looking headphones on her head and looked over at Brooke. "Okay, looks like everyone's online, putting together a group, aaaaand voice chat is a go."
"Hey everyone!" Brooke said into her own mic cheerfully. "Please tell me y'all have been practicing because I am not in a losing mood today."
From practically across the country, and through the magic of the interwebs, they were able to hear all their friends with perfect clarity. "It's cool. Victoria's been playing this since the day it came out, Kate's gonna be running heals, I annoy the shit out of everyone, and Chloe is just gonna be shooting things with shotguns. It's you two and Tori that have the really tough job." Ahhh, dear sweet Max always did know how to try and put a positive spin on things.
"I've racked up 20+ killstreaks with , okay? Y'all just stick to playing your little nerd characters and we'll do our jobs. Let's run a couple practice matches against the AI and then we can get on with this mystery match you told us about." Victoria really did always have a way of surprising them. For all that she clearly cared about fashion and normal girly shit. Then out of nowhere she would be a ranked Overwatch player with more than one set of golden weapons.
So at her recommendation, they played a couple of harder and harder rounds against some bots, just to make sure they could actually play together like a team. Much to Mina's delight, Kate as Mercy had really gotten the hand of zipping around from target to target and healing them as quickly as they could. Max wasn't kidding about how swiftly she could pop in, annoy the enemy, and then go back into hiding as Tracer. Chloe's Reaper gave no fucks about getting killed so long as she could kill her target as well. And Victoria showed a weird kindred relationship with , soaking up and dealing damage in equal measure.
It was a good thing Brooke and Mina's playstyle stuck to more technical skills. Mina spent her time as Mei setting up ice-walls, freezing enemies, and throwing up a protective barrier when need be. Brooke naturally took to using Symmetra, the only support character to offer no healing abilities whatsoever. She did her best to keep everyone supplied with shields while placing turret after turret.
Things actually felt... good. Even Kate, who normally didn't put that many hours into electronic entertainment, was giggling brightly into her mic. "This is so much fun! I like getting to rez people. 'Heroes never die!'" she said in her best germanic accent. Wow, she was even learning the language.
"Well good because now we're going to be fighting actual people and it may not be too easy. Mina said she made a friend who challenged her to a big six-on-six fight. And she has refused up and down to tell me any more about it." Brooke glared across their living room at Mina, but wasn't able to go long without breaking out in a goofy smile.
"Ignore her. I'm chatting with the other player right now and they've just about got the match set up, and then we'll be ready." Mina smirked back, feeling maybe just a tiny bit guilty about this. Truthfully, their friend made it sound as though the team they were putting together was going to be pretty supremely talented, and the six of them on the other hand were a hodgepodge of skill levels. But it promised to be pretty fun.
Eventually things got underway, and that was when it all went south. Because, as it turned out, EnglishLitAF's team was not just good, they were fucking amazing. Their Widowmaker [EyebrowsMcGee] was capable of firing off nothing but headshots from carefully covered vantage points. [QueenoftheHill] was capable of being everywhere at once as Sombra, ensuring everyone was constantly hacked. [FeelTheBeat]'s Lucio didn't die once and kept everyone in peak performance. They had a Pharah played by [AceReporter] that kept the skies clear of every single unwanted presence, and then swept the ground just for the fun of it. There was a Bastion played by the ironically monikered [SweetTea] who was basically never net spraying a hail of bullets. And [EnglishLitAF] tanked with a Roadhog that, if Mina were forced to guess, had a chainhook accuracy of 95% at least.
It wasn't until they'd been pushed back to the second defense point in Hanamura that something clicked. "Hey..." came Max's voice over the chat. "Do any of these uh... names sound kinda familiar...?"
"What are you talking about? If EnglishLit was someone I knew, wouldn't they tell me?" Mina knew that was kind of a dumb question to ask, but still she had to ask it. She could feel Brooke's hand coming to rest against her leg.
"Sweetie, really think about some of the people we know. Who wouldn't go to all that trouble?"
You could feel the sense of indignation from their friends, even through the internet. "Are you tell me that Taylor and Courtney are the ones who have been point and clicking me to death for the eight minutes? Oh, it is on."
"Oh my god, Dana would be FeelTheBeat. And Stella's the one who took away my cool whooshy ability?" Kate sounded so personally offended. It was kind of adorable.
"Juliet's the one who blew me up... I am giving her such a shotgun to her face!" muttered Chloe.
Max was just as hurt as everyone else. "Alyssa hit me with all those hook attacks. I couldn't believe it, I was blinking everywhere and she still got me!"
"Thaaaaaat's right darlings!" Finally someone from the other team decided it was time to join the conversation and chimed in with such a delightful tone you'd never think they'd just been massacring them. "Sorry, Tori, I just couldn't help myself! I mean... your fault for running around like that with your shields all drained. You almost had me with that light-gun, though! Bravo!" Courtney giggled, and everyone on Mina's team could feel their desire to win this damn thing rising.
"Alright everyone, there's still time. Kate, you and Victoria hold down the fort. Brooke, set some traps, and I'm going to keep that ice coming. Max, flank right. Chloe, flank right. No one stray too far, in case you need healing or Kate can rez us." Mina could feel her brain whirling away and she was certain now that they could still do this. Granted, they had to last a whole five minutes and some change defending the point. But it wasn't impossible.
Even when Chloe and Max were both pushed back onto the objective and all of Brooke's turrets were destroyed, they remained steadfast in fighting off their old friends. Victoria had a moment of pride at fending off Juliet's rocket barrage with her shields at full. Chloe managed actually managed to kill Courtney by learning to use her goddamn secondary abilities. Brooke managed to get lucky with a slow-shot that took out Dana.
But then on the other side of things, a few well-timed ults toward the last few seconds were enough to get Alyssa's team half-way toward claiming the second checkpoint. Kate was the only one left, surrounded by all her dead friends, and just when it seemed like things were at her worst, she hammered her ult button just in time to resurrect them all. There was a loud squeal of delight from everyone on the chat as they quickly pushed back the threat, the timer counted down, and the Victory appeared on the screen in bright glowing letters.
Mina could hear the sound of everyone showering their love and affection on Kate while Brooke kissed her on the cheek, and the screen was filled with a collection of gg's. This was redoubled when Kate got the play of the game for that last-minute resurrection, and everyone got their experience points.
The next sound that anyone really heard was Kate's voice, soft and sweet as ever. "Can we do that again?"
Here's the breakdown of the teams for anyone who's curious what the other names were or what the characters were they used.
Kate [MarshmallowPie] – Mercy
Max [MaximumEffort] – Tracer
Chloe [TatooTerror] – Reaper
Victoria [IceQueen] –
Mina [TransbianDork] – Mei
Brooke [DrShutUp] – Symmetra
Courtney [EyebrowsMcGee] – Widowmaker
Taylor [SweetTea] – Bastion
Dana [FeelTheBeat] – Lucio
Juliet [AceReporter] – Pharah
Stella [QueenoftheHill] – Sombra
Alyssa [EnglishLitAF] – Roadhog