He's known for sneaking around; this isn't anything new to him.
How Larry Breaks the Rule:
Frustrated and practically spitting flames, Larry slams his fists against the desk of his computer system. He groans, glancing heatedly at the 'game over' screen taunting him as a horde of Dry Bones pick his avatar's bones clean, moans chilling and emotionless while they feast on his corpse.
"Y'know, for someone who claims to be amazing at video games; you're bad at this," a voice ribs into him, crackling over his headset. They choose to escalate the snark, forgoing further wounding his pride with a condescending chuckle.
"I don't play many co-op games," Larry retorts scornfully. The win feels much sweeter when it's him against the world, climbing his way to the top and using his victims as stairs. Right now, all he's tasting is bitter defeat; and, boy, does it suck.
Thankfully, his online partner can't see him moping in his chair at another brutal loss, and further pick on him. Which—now that Larry thinks on it—is a stupid thought because he immediately hears a mirthful snort disproving his fleeting moment of relief.
"Clearly," is the desert dry reply of Yellow Toad or, Ala-Gold, as he prefers to be called by his peers.
"Whatever," Larry grumbles embitterly, running a hand down his face. He slams it on the desk with more force than he means to, rattling his action figurine display on the shelf above his impressive, LED riddled layout. "How was I supposed to know you were incapacitated?"
"The giant arrow that appears when someone is down," Ala-Gold prompts teasingly. "But you were too busy stealing all the kills to notice. We're supposed to be teammates."
Larry sighs massively into the headset, sinking guiltily into his chair. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it."
He hears the furious clicking of a mouse, then the naturally squeaky voice of Ala-Gold overpowers it with his question, "Wanna try again?"
Larry shrugs despite Ala-Gold not being able to see the gesture. "Sure."
The game reloads at the last checkpoint of their current undead slaying campaign. Larry glances at the number of restarts they have left in the corner: one. He can't screw this up again and, to rub salt in the already mortal injury, they're playing on the second easiest difficulty. Damn, he's better than this!
Gathering medical supplies (he leaves more for Ala-Gold since his character has healing buffs), snagging the upgrades for his shotgun, and adjusting his mouse sensitivity to the max, Larry believes he's as ready as he can be to face the undead army once again.
Together, they charge boldly out of their safe haven, his shotgun at the ready and Ala-Gold's fire axe already swinging down on an unlucky corrosive Dry Bones launching for them, spewing acid from its mouth.
Larry has a good feeling about this run with how in sync Ala-Gold is with his quick decision making, loyally on his heels. He feels the excitement of their destined win already, encouraged to shoot every skeletal head he sees to get there.
Larry never expected he'd ever be partnering up with a Toad to face the digital undead, but he supposes life just loves to lob a few curveballs to shatter through the mundane. It happened accidentally during a matchmaking game when they were randomly assigned partners and slaughtered the other four teams of two without mercy.
When he turned on his headset to congratulate his teammate for the immaculate teamwork and suggest they party up, his heart nearly stopped when Ala-Gold had beaten him to it.
The scratchy tenor practically speaking gibberish as he recounted all the moments Larry saved his tail, the gregarious attitude Ala-Gold carelessly displayed to his online buddy without prejudice because he believed they were of the same species, and the grating yelps of happiness instead of fear were all extremely telling signs Larry Koopa found himself partnering up with a Toad who didn't know he was playing with the Larry Koopa.
Thinking a passive 'whatever', Larry reluctantly began talking back, fighting down numerous bitter remarks, curious to see if he'd be recognized by the Toad at all by voice alone. Eventually, he stopped caring about it, absorbed into the game, counting their climbing win streak.
After winning one-hundred games in a row, trash talking various players with jabs, exchanging shared interests, and rightfully earning their new rankings and shiny gold medals, Ala-Gold sent Larry a friend invite.
The Koopaling could only stare blankly at the notification, hovering over the 'accept' button, debating his options, weighing the pros and cons in his head. Before he could accept the friend request, he came clean about his identity, expecting the worst and for the Toad to make his decision for him, only for Ala-Gold to nonchalantly reply he 'knew the whole time' because Larry's username made it plainly obvious.
Ah. Yes. 'DJLARRYKOOPA' definitely announces to the entire world who kicked their butt in a match. He purposely made it discernible for that specific reason because what were they going to do? Visit the castle in which ferocious King Bowser resides or attempt to hack his amazing system when he and Iggy were technology wizards?
After coming clean, he felt a weight lift off his shoulders he didn't know existed in the first place. Larry clicked 'accept' and they set up another play session, saying their goodbyes by calling each other an assortment of names like shell-brain and mushroom breath.
It wasn't until, after their second online conversation and match, that Ala-Gold shared his own name and a bit of personal information. The Toad boldly claimed he had been the yellow Toad who pulled him out of the ocean after Larry's ship crashed—which meant he also had been the same Toad who defeated Larry in the first place.
Experiencing a sudden rush of animosity, Larry expected his anger and resentment to ruin everything right then and there, and he was definitely prepared to give him a piece of his mind when he stopped, recounting that particular day.
Ala-Gold had pulled him from the ocean, propped him up against a rock, and tended to his wounds despite being the very reason Larry had them. Ala-Gold threw him scorching glares the entire time he assessed the damages and his harsh comments stung as much as the disinfectant he applied to Larry's cuts, but he never stopped offering his help when Larry constantly belittled him in a strident and venomous tone. He even resorted to name calling when Ala-Gold refused to take the bait.
And… Well, Larry feels a tad… bad (but in a good way) for making nice with a Toad. He feels like a naughty rule breaker, sneaking behind everyone's backs while he carelessly enjoys the thrill of it all. He's no longer the cowardly Larry Koopa who follows King Bowser's orders without question like a loyal lapdog.
Now, he's officially a bad boy. The girls will surely flirtatiously smile at him and gush about his misdeeds behind the open doors of their lockers when they get a whiff of his devious charms. (He knows he's being delusional, but let him imagine being effortlessly cool for once!)
Plus, this is a friend Larry had managed to make on his own without his siblings' help or connections. They're not a pity friend Ludwig orders to Larry's bedroom door to play video games with when he's upset because Ludwig has some magical, big brother instinct that can sense whenever Larry needs a pick-me-up without him saying anything.
Besides, Larry is not the only one palling around with their enemies so how much trouble will he really get in? Why should he feel guilty about it?
Lemmy broke the rule first when he got chummy with Luigi, of all people, and Iggy now shares a garage with Toadette whenever they have a racing tournament which, thanks to that cute annoyance, throws off the classic Koopaling set-up.
Roy now has Morton as his garage mate while Larry gets stuck with Wendy because none of his other brothers want to share with her and he bit the bullet after racking up and collecting numerous bribes from them first before begrudgingly pushing his equipment into her garage.
Wendy isn't unbearably whiny, but she is bossy and manipulative when she wants something. She somehow reels Larry into fetching her tools or fixing her kart by playing nice and laying on the ego inflating compliments. Despite how many times he tells himself he won't become her lackie again, he always falls for her games like a gullible moron. It's honestly a bit pathetic.
Larry focuses back on the game, protecting Ala-Gold's avatar as he fixes the wires in the power box of the truck garage they ended up in. He covers his back, making sure not a Dry Bones slips through his defensives while the garage door languidly lifts open at the pace of a leisure stroll old people (Kamek) take on a sunny day.
"Are we still meeting up on Saturday to pick up our pre orders at Coconut Mall?" Ala-Gold asks, breaking his concentration.
Right. That's this Saturday. With all this slaughtering of the undead, he must have forgotten their plans they made a week ago. The fighting game they've been raving about for months is finally being released on Friday, and while he prefers digital downloads, the free merchandise that came with the unlimited version was too tempting to pass up.
Larry slips Ala-Gold's character some SMG rounds which he graciously accepts. "Yeah, King Dad should be busy and my siblings don't care where I go as long as the cops don't bring me home."
Larry expects the long pause before the next question as Ala-Gold properly detects the open-ended insinuation buried in his sentence.
"Have the cops ever actually brought you home?" Ala-Gold doesn't appear to believe Larry has ever gotten in trouble with the law. Besides, well, Bowser's schemes, but no one has ever been arrested for their crimes.
Wait, why is that?
No, who cares about that? What about his image! So much for Larry feeling like a bad boy with amazing hair. Wounded mentally, he glances at his ailing health on the screen instead and sucks in air through his clenched teeth as he fights a mini horde while Ala-Gold lags behind, probably patiently waiting for an answer.
While he shoots at anything that moves, Larry sifts through his memories and realizes he technically has been brought home by local law enforcement. He doesn't find the story as funny as his siblings, but he supposes Ala-Gold would get a kick out of it.
Larry's player character stops in his tracks when he's cleaned out the area of undead, allowing Ala-Gold's character to catch up and patch him up to full health without Larry prompting him to.
"Are you not answering me because you're secretly a murderer or—" Ala-Gold trails off, chuckling a bit nervously.
"Nah, I was brought home once by the cops," Larry admits in a voice devoid of any humor. "My family forgot me at the supermarket when I was four."
Ala-Gold lets out a choked guffaw. "There's too many of you." Ala-Gold snorts. His character tosses shotgun shells onto the ground for Larry to pick up as a silent 'thank you' for the SMG rounds.
Larry sighs, graciously accepting more shells. "I say that all the time."
He swerves his mouse, glancing at their limited surroundings, noting the marked door. The ample amounts of scattered supplies that Ala-Gold plucks off the collection of shelves in the building they've found themselves cornered in is a bad sign. Larry's stomach sinks, dreading the sudden realization that crosses his mind. It looks like they're running to the next checkpoint, alerting all the Dry Bones within a one mile radius of their location.
A tired sigh escapes him as he joins Ala-Gold's fervent search. After gathering up all they can carry, reloading their weapons, and healing themselves, Larry and Ala-Gold exchange a knowing thumbs up emote between their characters before Larry's character steps forward. He sets the explosives on the door leading to the only exit.
"Y'know, at least I'm the best one out of all my siblings," Larry comments sarcastically as he clicks down his mouse. The bomb beeps then begins to tick down till the door's demise.
Ala-Gold laughs intermingle with the second beep of the timer while they take cover behind a crate. "I can't argue with you there."
Oh. Larry hadn't expected that reply. Color and heat rushes to his face. He's certain the stupid smile on his face is extremely wide; his flushed cheeks are aching.
The Dry Bones screeching ruins the touching moment as the explosion shakes the screen, raining debris down on their player characters. Momentarily blind, Larry relies on the yellow gleaming eyes shining through the thick smoke and debris and aims his shots accordingly until it clears. The horde swarms in through the door and the broken windows above them, bony maws open wide.
Larry grins confidently, mimicking Ala-Gold's enthusiastic 'woop!' and they dive into the fray together.
Zombie games are one of my favorite games to play. I'm not just a Nintendo-loving freak. I do enjoy variety.