Owned By Little Green Men
Disclaimer: Do not own World of Warcraft or the Persona franchise, om nom nom.
Note: Basic knowledge of WoW required for full appreciation.
Dude, weren't the Deadmines supposed to be the easiest dungeon in the game? The n00best of the n00bs? Then why- why were things going so wrong? Even pick up groups never failed as much as they did currently, and they were supposed to be something everyone avoided like STDs. Well, there was always people who were into those things, the fetish of getting AIDS or something, he once read on the internet, what was it- well, that wasn't the point.
The point was-
"Damnit Satonaka, can you just stop pulling the whole fricking room?"
"Huh? How can I pull a room? Ooh, treasure chest!"
-was that he chose the wrong people to play with. It's logical, right? Satonaka Chie, kung-fu master extraordinaire. She should be... well, she should be leading the team to victory by kicking asses and lying down hardcore carnage. Maybe that was the problem. The carnage part. Only it wasn't their enemies' limbs flying. It was theirs.
"Nonono, don't go there. Wait until Souji gets here, damnit, come back here!"
"Whyyy?"
"Because this isn't a kung-fu movie, Satonaka. You can't beat a room full of bandits just from sheer willpower! Where is he?"
And then there was their own leader. He swore they took more than thirty minutes trekking here from Stormwind because Souji kept disappearing behind them. "I was picking flowers," he would say with an apologetic shrug whenever Yosuke looked up and glared at him. The other time it was "sorry, fell off a cliff." And then they had to wait another ten minutes while he ran back to his corpse, occasionally being sidetracked by pretty trees. Only to resurrect and die again. Then they had to double back to the nearest vendor to repair his armour.
How could someone fall off a cliff when the nearest cliff was far to the north and they were going south? And the trees all looked the same, so how- well, at least his female gnome (why?) mage was aptly named Spacecadet. Of course, every time Souji wandered off Chie would also use it as an opportunity to run off into a camp of... whatever was in sight. Steakfu (the ugliest, oldest human male warrior Yosuke had ever seen in his two years' stint of World of Warcraft – no doubt her idea of the ideal mate) and Spacecadet should just team up and become, become. Well, they should just team up and commit double suicide or something. He wasn't going to die with them for the fifth time in a row.
No. Just. Oh god please. No.
"There was a copper mine there. And the wall has an interesting texture," said Souji by way of explanation when Windmaster went askdf;wdsgd on the party chat.
"Right, right," Yosuke said, trying hard not to hyperventilate. "Can we just get this over with please? Kanji, pull that group to the left."
"Huh? Your left or my left?"
"The screen's left."
"Oh. Wait, they're like, grouped together. The hell am I gonna separate them?"
"It's elementary. Angle yourself thirty five degrees to the left, then proceed to move back five yards – that is, game wise. The patrol takes an approximate of one minute and twenty seven seconds to complete its round, requiring 'throw' to be bound to an easily accessible key in order to precisely time your pull precisely after forty five seconds have lapsed."
"Uh..."
"It has also come to my attention that your reaction to the group's well-being is not exactly swift, a fact demonstrated by your ignorance of my declining health bar until it is too late. Thus I suggest that you set up a macro consisting of: slash-assist-bracket-help-closing bracket-semicolon-space-capitalized taunt-line bre-"
"What she meant is watch the group's health bar."
"Oh. Okay."
Of course, there was Naoto. Granted, she was actually a decent, if not competent. But her constant chattering of damage-per-second, armour rating, threat-per-second, the shortest time from point A to point B, the- well, it was getting annoying. They were barely level twenty, for crying out loud. Why did she have to calculate the most efficient armour with the most efficient block rating or the most efficient skill rotation in every fricking scenario? And it seemed like she had this fetish of ending the fight with full mana bar – which meant that Yosuke usually died first. "Rogues are of the lowest priority," she had said without any consideration of Yosuke's feeling. It hurt, but he swallowed his manly pride and patiently waited to be resurrected. Besides, she was probably just bitter from being relegated as a healer since she wanted to be a shadow priest and MELT FACES.
He told her to stop reading troll posts on the forums.
Well, at least Kanji didn't share the same flaws as the rest of the group. He was actually quite good in protecting the squishies from getting face stabbed – when he remembered the hotkeys to his skills. Or when he wasn't too busy stealing glances at Naoto's chest. Or lack thereof. Who'd know with all that binding.
Not that Yosuke had ever fantasized about it. Nope.
Anyway, Yosuke knew how hard tanking multiple mobs was for a low leveled warrior. He could sympathise and turn a blind eye here and then.
"Remember to taunt, Kanji," Yosuke said after prying Chie's hand off the keyboard. "Gonna mark them now. Remember, skull is first kill, cross is second, triangle for crowd control- that's you, Souji. Coin is for me to sap. So kill order is skull cross coin triangle, okay?"
"Gotcha, sempai."
"Satonaka?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"I must inform you, Hanamura-sempai, that based on my calculation of the rate we are going, the completion of the dungeon will take approximately four hours, not taking into account the outliers that may affect-"
"Kay. One. Two. Three; go!"
And to his surprise, it actually went pretty well. Kanji's remembered the keys for his skills, Chie didn't go around trying to imitate Bruce Lee, Naoto actually shut up, and Souji didn't go off to find nonexistent flowers.
Oh god, the thrill of decent teamwork. He hadn't experienced it in three hours. Three. Full. Hours. It felt like ambrosia for a starving man. It felt like seeing Rise's more scandalous photo-book for the first time. It felt like-
It felt like hell.
When the shit hits the fan, it hits it hard. It was like, like teaching a man to fish but forgetting to give him a fishing pole. Or teaching him to fish and then stealing his catch. Whoever thought about feeding a dude by teaching him how to fish was an idiot. And that was exactly how Yosuke felt: stupid.
He wasn't sure what went wrong, really. But it started when Souji's sheep was broken, and of course, he was probably too busy admiring some pixels to re-sheep. By then it was back into its green, ugly goblin mug and immediately went to chew on Naoto, and while Kanji was trying to save everyone's ass, the one Chie had been pummeling ran off – only to come back with a whole room's worth of green, little midgets.
"Um," said Yosuke as he stared at the tombstones on his monochrome screen.
"That sucked," Chie said, twirling her mouse dejectedly. "I mean, dying the first few times were fun, but we've been at this for like, three hours and my butt hurts from sitting too long."
"Well, at least it wasn't your fault this time, cheer up." His halfhearted encouragement was apparently ineffective because she still looked like someone just stole her steak. The group morale was falling – and that meant deteriorated performance (although he has no idea how they could deteriorate more when they were already at zero), which meant possible break up. Which meant he had just wasted his morning for nothing. Not going to happen. He looked beseechingly at Rise.
"Sorry sempai," said Rise, not even sparing him more than a glance as she went back to her laptop. "Too busy reading guides on improving our team work to notice what was going on."
Yosuke had the suspicion that she was actually busy typing profanities halfway through the world in Counter Strike, but he decided against warning her because last time his face ended up meeting a mouse flying at high velocity.
He turned his gaze to Kanji instead. "Let's try again? We can still do it, right? Just need to readjust our strategies" (he tried to ignore the fact that they had pretty much exhausted every single strategy known to man) "and maybe just try a little bit harder?"
Because damned if he'd let the last three hours go to waste. They were going to finish the damn dungeon, no matter what. Three hours he could never, ever get back. He'd make it count. Even if it would take the whole day, he'd make it count, damnit. In the end Hanamura Yosuke will remain victorious!
But first. Kanji.
"Uh, I dunno, sempai." Kanji scratched his head, troubled. Then his face brightened. "Oh yeah! I just remembered I gotta get back. Ma told me to... do stuff. Delivery! Yeah, gotta deliver things... to places," Kanji promptly became deaf to Yosuke's protests, logged off, then sped off in record time.
...at least he didn't use the-cat-burned-down-my-kitchen-omg-gotta-go! excuse. Go die in a fire, Tatsumi.
"The percentage of completing it with only four members is slim to none, I'm afraid."
"Hurr durr, Captain Obvious."
Naoto blinked.
"I need to level up my herbalism." Souji.
"Hey, anyone wanna go grab some steak?" Chie.
A saviour. He needed a saviour. Otherwise he was going to end up doing a dramatic headdesk and probably fracture his skull. Hell, he needed Je-
"Oh. Why is everyone here?"
He looked up to see Yukiko standing at the entrance, shaking the water off her umbrella. So much for Jesus.
"We were just playing games," Chie said, already moving to make space for her best friend. "I thought you were busy at the inn?"
"The tour group canceled their reservation at the last minute, so I have the rest of the day free. I just went here to drop off Souji-kun's textbook he left at my house."
Souji smiled. "Thanks, Yuki. Sorry for the trouble."
"It's no trouble, Souji-kun. It's you after all..."
He tuned them out. They were probably going to hold hands next. Then cuddle. Then stare lovingly at each other. Then go up to Souji's room and do naughty things. Hos before bros. That traitor.
He stared morosely at the pretty wood grain of the table, then resolved to call his dad to ask for extra shifts and get the hell out before naughty things commence- when Yukiko said: "you've been playing World of Warcraft? What were you doing? I haven't had time all week so my paladin is still low-leveled, but-"
"Holy shit, you play?" said Yosuke, who had jerked his neck so suddenly he almost snapped a tendon.
"Well, yes, but I only started three weeks ago and I don't really have much time to play, so I'm still quite inexperienced."
"WHAT LEVEL."
"Um, twenty one?"
"YOU RUN DEADMINES."
"Well, only a few times... but I'm quite familiar with it."
"TANK?"
"I haven't quite decided, but I'm currently specced as protection, yes."
"Shirogane, stop trolling 2chan. Satonaka, stop staring at Bruce Lee's ass on Youtube. And Souji, scoot over so Yukiko can get on Tatsumi's laptop. We're going to bash some motherfucking ugly mugs."
"Wait, we're gonna do it again?"
"I am not convinced that it is the proper course of action-"
"My flowers-"
"Aren't you guys tired of getting your asses kicked? Of being laughed at by goblins carrying freaking pickaxes? Of staring at your puny, puny corpse on the ground? It's time for revenge, people. REVENGE!"
"Uhh, shouldn't we at least ask Yukiko if she wants to do it first?"
"Oh, I don't mind, Chie," Yukiko said, already sitting down in front of Kanji's laptop, hands poised to go. "It's better to play with your friends than complete strangers on the internet, after all. Just a second; I'm logging in..."
HOS BEFORE BROS, YO.
After forcefully getting Naoto off from 2chan in the middle of typing a post (what's 'who is phone' supposed to mean anyway?) and ignoring Rise's shouting (that noob blocked my headshot I'm gonna frag him and SHOW WHO'S BOSS AAARGH!) they made a rendezvous in front of the entrance ten minutes later.
The last one to show was a draenei.
Thud.
Yosuke's heart skipped a beat. He always had a soft spot for draeneis (a very soft spot – and no, it's not a fetish; definitely not), and the sight of one fully decked in scantily clad armour was... was... he decided to express his feelings in-game.
/flirt
Windmaster flirts with Maramagi.
/e thinks Maramagi is way awesomer than Xena.
Windmaster thinks Maramagi is way awesomer than Xena.
Then he added with a wink: "You're looking hot, Yuki-tan."
For once Souji stopped being a hippie tree hugger and glared at him.
"Thank you," Yukiko said demurely. "But I'm always hot."
He could have chosen a better adjective, come to think of it.
"Okay, we're all here, so let's go. Leave that copper mine alone. You ready, Amagi?"
"Yes. Oh, please make me leader - it's easier that way."
"Are you sure, because-"
"Yes."
And Yosuke decidedly didn't like her smile, or the gleam in her eyes. He obliged. In truth he wasn't quite sure of Yukiko's skill, but it didn't hurt to try. She was a draenei after all. And draeneis are always good. What could go wrong anyway? Another wipe? He was a manly night elf man. He could take that.
...
Well, the worst that could happen was Yukiko not showing up. He swore it was the smoothest run ever. First she went in slowly, cautiously, and the rest of the team was happy to follow her snail pace while they cleared room after room. Until they went into a room where the enemies were grouped in close proximity to each other.
"So, which one first?" Yosuke (who had looked for a chance to impress her by imparting his two years' and three level 70's worth of knowledge) said.
"Everything," she said simply. Then ran into the room.
Yosuke's noooooo was too late, because all hell broke loose, and he was rendered to staring at his monitor, almost afraid the sparkles and shiny effects were going to cause seizures. And then:
"Um," he said.
"That was-" Chie started.
"Intense," Naoto agreed.
"Please don't linger, I'm trying to beat my previous run record," said Yukiko with a hint of steel in her voice. "We'll go once Naoto-kun's regains his mana." Then immediately set off anyway.
The next thirty minutes was a blur of fight after fight with barely any rest in between. They only really ever stopped when Naoto flooded the chat log with her Amagi-sempai out of mana out of mana spam.
On the thirty first minute after the rendezvous, Van Cleef's sorry carcass lied on their feet, and Yosuke decided he was in love with her. Even if sometimes she laughed maniacally in a menacing way after killing a boss, or if she was reckless to the point of being suicidal. Or if her aggressiveness was due to repressed anger and might cause her to show up at Yasogami High with a machine gun someday. She was good and she was a draenei. That was all that mattered.
He gazed lovingly at Yukiko and said: "Yuki-tan, have my babies."
It earned him the Amagi Slap and a demand to duel from Souji. But it was worth it.
Hos before bros. Definitely.
End.
Written for a prompt in badbadbathhouse. Also, I haven't played WoW in a long, loooong time- not after Burning Crusade. So pardon the errors or out of date reference.
Edit: After re-reading it, I realised: WHY, I FORGOT ABOUT TEDDIE. Let's just pretend Teddie never made it back from that ominously steamy ramen shop...
