The New Game & Dragon Maid Yuri Crossover

Chapter 13

"Come and get me, if you're hard enough!" Kobayashi cheerfully declared, her knight attacking the enemy.

"I'm sure no one in the game would say that!" Takiya chuckled.

They were playing Fairy Story 3, while on break between programming jobs. Both for fun, and so they'd be familiar with the game when it came time to do part four.

"I should get this when it officially comes out," Takiya added. He chuckled, "I think Fafnir would like it."

"Hmm," Kobayashi agreed.

They hit an important Non-player Character and both froze.

"That's TOTALLY Aoba," Kobayashi blinked.

"Yup. How...?" Takiya asked.

"Hey! Boss!" Kobayashi called.

Umico came over, then chuckled seeing the screen they paused at. "Yup, that's Aoba," she agreed. "What's really funny is Ko assigned designing the character Sophia to Aoba."

"Seriously?" Kobayashi blinked.

"And she didn't realize Sophia was HER until she finished," Umico chuckled.

"Ouch," Takiya laughed.

"Have fun," Umico said as she went back to work.

They played on a bit... "Hey! Sophia DIES?" Kobayashi bitched.

"Maybe we did a route wrong," Takiya mused. "Back up a bit."

"Nope. Died," Kobayashi noted.

"Well THAT sucks," Takiya noted. He added, "You CAN get Sophia in a protected spot here and keep fighting, but that just stalls the game. You can't save her."

"That's a bug, I bet," Kobayashi agreed.

Umico confirmed that YES, it was a bug. It was very hard to get the 'protect Sophia' option going, so after some debate just left it in there.

"I bet you gamers are going to hack a way to save her," Kobayashi added.

"Agreed," Takiya nodded.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Wait, you have the programmers playing Fairy Story? That is SO unfair," Aoba pouted.

Rin chuckled, "You're all busy developing ideas for the new game, remember? Besides, we all know another Fairy Story is coming, and they need to be familiar with it."

"True," Aoba admitted.

They were all submitting ideas for the next Eagle Jump this afternoon, and everyone was working on their projects. Hajime's project, alone, was several pages of descriptions.

"I haven't dealt with Ms Yamato yet," Aoba said a bit nervously.

"She's nice," Rin reassured her, "a bit shy. Just try not to hug or kiss her."

"Eh?" Yun blinked.

"We'll keep it in mind," Aoba nodded.

Aoba had a pile of 'character idea' sketches, but no real concepts for a game. Which didn't really bother her, though she was nervous about competing with Ko. She HAD been head designer of several games, of course.

"That is SO CUTE," Yun noted.

Aoba blushed as she realized Yun had seen the catgirl she had been sketching.

"How would that work as a game?" Yun wondered.

"I was thinking the main character could take on various animal powers for different missions," Aoba explained.

"That could work. You could make hybrid villains too," Yun noted, the creature designer clearly interested in that idea.

"Yeah!" Aoba agreed.

Time went by, and soon the staff interested in submitting ideas were called to a meeting room. Rin was there, along with Shizuku and Ms Yamato. Christina was a attractive, slim young woman, and seemed the serious sort.

"Hajime, there's some interesting ideas here," Shizuku nodded to the documents, "but there's just... too much."

"I got carried away," Hajime admitted sheepishly.

"Narrow it down and focus on one concept," Christina nodded, "there ARE some interesting things in here."

Hajime took her papers, smiling, "Yes ma'am."

They then reviewed Kobiyashi and Takiya's proposals.

"I like the idea," Christina told Kobayashi, "but I'm not sure how the gameplay would work. And I think it would be VERY complicated to make."

"Oh, agreed," Kobayashi nodded, "you'd need multiple character paths. Something like the Persona series."

"Not really our thing," Rin admitted.

"Takiya, we also generally don't do dungeon crawlers," Shizuku admitted, "but Rin suggested this might make an interesting mini-game in a larger Fairy Story chapter."

"Oh," Takiya blinked, "yeah, that would work, I think."

"Write it up as a full proposal, we'll bounce it back to head office," Christina added.

"Will do," Takiya agreed.

"Okay, Aoba, Ko, you're next," Rin said.

"Ko, your designs are as fine as ever," Shizuku noted, "but nothing really peapt out at us."

Ko had a moment of shock, but bottled it up.

"Aoba, I wanted to ask about this," Christina held up a cute, but comic, sketch of a bear=girl sort of fused with a plushie.

"Oh! I didn't intent to include that," Aoba admitted sheepishly.

Rin noted, "It's rough, but we want something very different from Fairy Story for our next game," Rin noted. "Could you develop this as a concept and come back to us with it?"

"Yes," Aoba squeaked.

"All right, that's it for now," Shizuku said briskly, "thank you for all your time."

As they went their seperate ways, Kobiyashi quietly noted to Takiya, "That really surprised Ao, I think."

"You think she figured she had it in the bag?" Takiya asked quietly.

"Looked like it," Kobayashi agreed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Ko WAS in fact, kind of stunned, and even was bitchy towards Aoba a little. But her sense of professionalism (and a talking to by Rin) won out, and she even assisted Aoba in fine tuning the rough drawing into a working design.

"So the character is roaming a land of plush creatures, she defeats an enemy then wears them?" Hifumi blinked.

"Pretty much," Aoba admitted.

"Weird, yet adorable," Yun noted.

Ko chuckled, "The villain designs are going to be a challenge, Yun. You'll need to manage both scary AND cute."

"I can manage," Yun sniffed.

"It looks like it'll be fun," Hifumi agreed.

Elma had gone for a snack run (again) then stopped in to look at their work. She was friendly, but not everyone appreciated her looking in.

"Are you guys STILL playing Fairy Story?" Aoba pouted.

"Yup," Elma chuckled. She added, "Kobayashi and Takiya have already finished it, of course."

"They're both gamers too?" Yun asked.

"Hmm," Elma agreed. She saw Aoba's rough sketches, "Oooh. So cute!"

Aoba blushed, "Thanks."

Elma eat her crackers, heading back to the programmer's area.

"Are you two STILL playing?" Elma asked as she arrived.

"We're trying to unlock all the various character routes," Kobiyashi defender herself.

"Riiiiight," Elma drawled.

"You can try too if you like," Umico offered.

"Eh. I'd rather have my lunch first," Elma predictively replied.

To be continued...

Notes: I need to figure out how to advance the Aoba/Hifumi romance. Hard to do, since canonly Hifumi is so damn shy. May also add some Nene/Umico, at some point.