AN: Does anyone even use this site anymore? anyway go read this on ao3 instead. or stick around if youre really stubborn

Chapter 1: What If We Held Hands In Soloqueue (And We Were Both Girls)

"Hey guys," Lena said as she messed around with OBS and her webcam. She could see the stream on her second monitor, and everything looked okay. Heroes of Aberralia, the hit new competitive fantasy shooter, was booting up in the background, and she tabbed back into it.

She glanced over at chat. "Is the sound good?"

ThunderMelon: yea
Aoma655: :thumbs_up:
lollycake: yes
Hellranger: :dogchamp: :dogchamp:
plaxstik: sounds good

"Sweet," Lena said.

She had a small audience—only about thirty viewers at the moment—but for how many people had started streaming this game lately, that wasn't too bad, especially considering that she was super late to the party. She'd only been streaming for about a week now, and despite being in the highest skill bracket in the competitive mode, that wasn't enough to get her noticed in the sea of big streamers.

But honestly, she was fine with that. She wasn't in it for the money or anything, and she imagined running one of those streams that regularly got 20K viewers could get rather overwhelming. She didn't really know any of the big names, though—she'd been too busy playing to watch anyone else's stuff.

"Let's get down to business," Lena said, queueing up for a ranked game. "Hopefully the randos are nice today." She hadn't had too many bad experiences with the people in this game, but online games were online games. She'd had to mute her fair share of people.

Aoma655: what do u think of the thief buffs

"I think the Thief buffs are good," Lena said. "She was complete ass before this patch. I know a lot of people think she's too annoying now, but, like, that's the point of her entire character, you know? She's still more of a distraction than an actual threat, but with the way they changed her backstab, she's a distraction you actually have to deal with. Before, you could just kind of ignore her."

Lollycake: thief mains rise up :fist: :fist:
Plaxstik: her invis cooldown is way too short now
Aoma655: i agree w u shadow

Lena frowned. "Her invis kind of has to hve a short cooldown, though. She's gotta use it to get behind the enemy, but then she can't get out until it comes back on again. Before the patch all the Thief plays I saw would end up trapped with cloak on cooldown and just die. She doesn't have any other disengagement tools to get her out of tight—oop."

System Message: Competitive game found (Redwood Castle)

"Redwood Castle, huh?" she mumbled as the map loaded in. "I can work with that. Who do we—pfft."

Hellranger: LMAOOO
Breezeburner: wow
Hellranger: 4stack pog

Lena struggled to contain her laughter as she looked at her teammates' names: Red, Blue, Green, and Pink.

ThunderMelon: lmao nice 4stack
LNTbug: soloqueue moment

"Are you serious?" Lena laughed. She controlled herself, and then activated her push-to-talk. "So, is this like, your gimmick?" she asked over teamspeak as she selected her hero, Warlock. "The whole color coordination thing?"

It was a moment before she got a response, but when she did, it came from Green. "At least we didn't name ourselves ShadowGirl and then instapick Warlock," he said.

Plaxstik: burned
Hellranger: :dogchamp:

"Don't be mean," Pink said. She'd already selected Archer. "I'm sure she'll do great!"

aoma655: don't listen to him shadow its a cool name

"I feel like Warlocks always either carry or throw," Blue said. "Like, there's no in-between."

LNTbug: facts
ThunderMelon: lmao TRUUU

"Don't worry, Bluey, I'm one of the good ones," Lena assured.

Green let out a strangled laugh at 'Bluey', and then quickly went off push-to-talk, cutting himself off mid-guffaw. A few seconds later, he selected Thief.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Oh, of course he plays Thief. And he was giving me shit about Warlock!"

Lollycake: thief mains rise up!
Plaxstik: :unimpressed: of course

"Well, this is sure to be interesting," Lena said as the other two chose their characters: Blue went for Dragonkin, and Red picked Mage.

Webby's eyes were glued to the screen as she grappled up onto the ramparts above the castle gate. The enemy team was pushing in, and they had already taken out Dewey. She was just equipping her Acid Arrow ability when the killfeed showed Louie getting offed by the enemy Barbarian, accompanied by his quiet "Shit" over the mic.

"What was that about Thief being 'busted' now, Green?" Dewey said sarcastically.

"She is," Louie stressed. "I'm just bad."

Webby saw a flicker of movement past the ruined mill outside the castle gate, and let her arrow fly. It landed just beyond the corner, and left a large pool of sizzling acid behind. Hopefully that would at least pin whoever was back there for a little wild.

"One's hiding behind mill," she said over team voice.

"Three pushing up main too," Dewey added. "Anyone know where the fifth is?"

"Dead," said their teammate, ShadowGirl; and, sure enough, the killfeed updated, showing that she'd downed the enemy Werecat. "My wraith's tracking the one at mill—I've got 'em."

Suddenly, Huey yelped, and Webby flicked her crosshair over to where he was stationed. "Need help at main!" he called out frantically.

He was shooting his laser blasts as fast as he could, and Webby saw the flash of his lightning bolt go off, but he was getting ganged up on by the enemy Dryad and Dragonkin. Webby steadied her crosshair and fired, her arrow sailing true and catching the Dragonkin right in the head, killing him. It wasn't enough, though, and Huey quickly died from the Dryad's rain of thorns. Webby shot another arrow, and nailed the Dryad in the leg, but it wasn't enough to take her down. Before Webby could fire again, a line of trees shot up across the road, blocking her line of sight.

She cursed under her breath and jumped from the ramparts, throwing down her Hunter's Trap at the gates and running off to a different vantage point. She managed to spare a glance at the chat.

UnicornMagic: damn that aim tho :bluepumped:
David34: dryad wall is so bs :unimpressed:
DarkHeart: this is the best rando uv gotten in a while
Sk8rGrrl subbed! (x3)
Lmaohorse: bro greens so bad at this game :webbylaugh: :redfacepalm:

"Thanks for the three months, skater!" Webby said cheerily, before shifting her focus back to the match and opening her team voice. "Dryad walled off main, they're pushing through market."

"Mage down," ShadowGirl said, as the killfeed confirmed her statement. "Gonna hit them on the flank, but they'll be expecting it."

"Damn," Louie said, speaking on their personal channel. "This girl is insane. I was spectating her for that kill, and it was clean."

"Maybe you should wait, Shadow?" Huey advised over voice. "Blue's about to respawn, and Dragonkin has one of the fastest rollouts in the game, so—"

"Nah, we got this," ShadowGirl interrupted. "Yo Pink, see if you can nail their Barbarian for me. I've got Dryad."

"On it," Webby said. She kept her eyes on the minimap, and grappled over the side of a wall just as ShadowGirl rounded the corner from behind. The enemy Dryad quickly activated her spore cloud, but Webby was even quicker, letting loose an arrow before the spore cloud spread far enough to affect her aim. Her shot was true, and the arrow split straight through the Barbarian's skull, sending him to the ground instantly.

Meanwhile, ShadowGirl cast out her hex onto Dryad and then unleashed a fully charged necrotic blast straight at her. Dryad took the hit hard, but quickly retaliated with her vine whip move. However, before the vine could connect, ShadowGirl used her shadow walk ability to teleport behind Dryad, slamming her with a few quick beams of magic that killed her before she could even turn around and start firing. A smoky purple wraith rose up from her corpse, and started floating off towards the enemy spawn.

"Werecat's respawned already," ShadowGirl said. "That's probably who the wraith locked onto. I'm gonna follow it and see if I can get a free kill."

"I'll stay on ramparts for now in case she slips past you," Webby said, running off back to the main castle.

As it happened, she did not slip past her. ShadowGirl managed to get the kill on Werecat—and then the kill on Dragonkin a few seconds later, and then the kill on Mage a few seconds after that. Webby's chat was going wild.

DarkHeart: she's actually cracked :blueshock: :dogchamp:
Kalioak: nerf warlock 2020
BestJess: add her
A1u1a: :blueshock: :greenthinking:
VenusFlytrap: add her

"Jeez, is she even gonna leave any for the rest of us?" Louie said. He was running towards the enemy spawn too, having respawned a while ago, but had yet to actually encounter anyone.

Dewey laughed. He and Huey were holding the main objective with Webby, not wanting to give up their positioning. "Honestly! I mean, this is crazy."

"Oh my god," Louie said. "They're all leaving spawn together now. They're scared."

Huey relayed that information to ShadowGirl over the voice chat, and suggested she fall back for now; she complied, deciding to hide out behind one of the little houses on the outskirts of the map.

"Wait wait wait, I've got my Secret Technique charged," ShadowGirl said. "Green, can you poison one and then cloak away?"

"Oh my god, you're evil," Louie said. "Okay, I got Barbarian with it. I'm hiding over by the blacksmith."

"I'm going in," ShadowGirl said.

"We should push them as soon as Shadow ults," Webby said over their personal chat, jumping off the ramparts.

"Push them? We're on defense!" Huey protested. "That's absolutely not what you're supposed to do on defense!"

"Look at the time, though," Webby said. "If we stuff them out here, we win."

"I'm in," Dewey said.

"Of course you're in," Huey said with a sigh. "You love rushing. I think—"

"Hexed him," ShadowGirl cut in, which is honestly what they deserved for talking outside of team voice like that. "Running back to you to use ult. Pink, cover me."

"You're covered!" Webby chirped, throwing her trap down next to Shadow and then grappling up to a nearby rooftop to stand guard. "Go get 'em."

ShadowGirl activated her secret technique: it allowed her to take control of the whichever enemy she had hexed for a short period of time. The plan was to walk him all the way over to Louie; since the poison would already have him at half health, Louie's backstab move should kill him in one shot.

But before they could pull it off, Webby caught sight of the enemy Werecat moving in on ShadowGirl's abandoned body. Fortunately, Werecat stepped in her trap, metal jaws clamping up and securing her in place—from there, Webby easily lined up a headshot, taking her down for good. At the same time, the killfeed displayed Louie getting the backstab kill on the enemy Barbarian, and ShadowGirl returned to her regular body. The three of them all converged on where Dewey and Huey were fighting the rest of the enemy team, and it wasn't long before they had wiped them all out, without a single one of them dying.

"Team Kill!" exclaimed the announcer.

And just like that, the game timer ticked down to zero, securing their victory.

"Let's go!" Dewey shouted. "That was clean!"

"Only because our Warlock carried us," Huey said. "Look at the scoreboard."

Webby pulled up the match scoreboard and gawked; normally, she was the one who got the most kills on their team, but this time ShadowGirl was leading her by six frags. "Holy crap," she muttered.

"Good game," was all ShadowGirl said over team voice.

"Good game," Webby returned, sparing a glance at chat. It was going as fast as she'd ever seen it.

JelloMuffin: add her
Kayleighplays: goddamn
C4ctu5: :blueshock: yo shes insane
$5 Tip from Haxelia: add her
Bluehelix: add her :bluepumped:
Waaaaz: webs got some competition :greensmirk:
ElectroHands is a new sub!
$10 Tip from GlaxxyYT: add her

Webby's eyes widened. "Wow, guys, that's a lot of donations, I—" She let out a disbelieving laugh. "Thanks for the sub Electro, welcome to the Web. Thanks for the tips Haxelia and Glaxxy—oh, and another from Brandon—okay, seriously, slow down!"

"You good, Webby?" Louie asked.

"Chat's going crazy," Webby said. "They want me to add ShadowGirl."

"Like, to queue up with her again?" Huey pondered. "I mean, I wouldn't complain. That was the best game we had all day."

"Oh my god," Webby said, laughing despite herself. She right clicked on ShadowGirl's profile, hovering over the 'add friend' button. "Oh my god. Should I do it?"

Dewey chuckled. "I'm down!"

"Do it for the content, Webs," Louie said.

"Oh my god. Okay. We'll see if she even responds, I guess." Webby clicked.

System message: Friend request sent successfully.

Heroes of Aberrae Wiki — Warlock

"What a beautiful soul… I'll be sure not to waste it." —Warlock (after killing a Hexed enemy)

Class: Arcane

Arcane heroes fight with spells and magic rather than traditional weaponry. They have more unusual abilities that drastically change the way you have to play the character. In the right hands, these heroes can singlehandedly turn the tide of battle.

Role: Saboteur

Saboteurs appear when you least expect it, harassing the enemy team from flanks and off angles. They specialize in singling out vulnerable targets, taking them out in devastating surprise attacks, and then vanishing before they can get ganged up on.

Abilities

Primary Fire: Necrotic Bolt

Warlock shoots a small bolt of condensed necrotic energy from her fingertips. The attack has a relatively fast fire rate and deals average damage.

Alt Fire: Necrotic Blast

Warlock charges up a ball of condensed necrotic energy and then shoots it out. Damage and projectile speed scale with the amount the blast was charged.

Primary Ability: Hex

Warlock instantly Hexes an enemy Hero. Hexed enemies take 20% more damage from Warlock's attacks, and can be seen by Warlock through walls. When Warlock kills a Hexed enemy, a Wraith spawns where they died. Wraiths seek out the nearest enemy Hero and apply Nearsighted for 3s, as well as Hexing them automatically, upon contact. Warlock can press Primary Ability again to Recall Hex; this will allow them to hex a new target. If Warlock Recalls Hex while a Wraith is alive, the Wraith will be destroyed, and Warlock will regenerate 100 HP over 5s.

Secondary Ability: Shadow Walk

Warlock dissolves into shadows and reappears a short distance away. Useful for dodging attacks and moving to unexpected locations. 5s cooldown.

Secret Technique: Dark Puppeteer

Warlock leaves her body behind and assumes control of whichever enemy Hero is currently Hexed. The possessed Hero is unable to attack or use abilities. The spell is broken when the possessed Hero dies, if Warlock's body dies, or after 5s. This ability charges up slowly over time.