Centuries / Immortals (Favorite Generations)
"Alright, if nobody has any, like, further objections or all that, then we'll have the TTRPG campaign next week. Sound good, everyone?" Kiara's voice sounded over the Discord call, meeting only unanimous silence. "Then it's settled then, yeah! Now that that's outta the way, should we maybe, I don't know, just stay around and talk for a bit?" Kiara invited her fellow genmates to partake in open discussion while they were all in the call.
Although Calli was the game master for the Mythbreakers campaign, holoMyth's scheduling generally ran smoother when Tenchou was in charge. For better or worse, it was best when Kiara was in control of this stuff.
Gura asked, "What do we talk about this time? Last week, it was about our anniversary streams, so should we… I dunno, plan some other events?"
Ina suggested, "What about the holoCouncil? We'll probably be some of the first ones they'll look to collab with after the generation ban's up."
Kiara replied, "Oo, great idea, Ina. How should we split up like, who collabs with which kouhai? Oh! I call dibs on Mumei! Gotta show our newest holoBird around here the ropes!" Ina and Amelia agreed, while Gura quietly sighed in relief, eager to dodge a bullet.
Calli followed, a bit dejected that she would have to wait to stream with Kyawatori. "Guess it's only fitting I go with Fauna. Life and Death go hand-in-hand and all that."
The priestess requested, "May I go with Sana? AO-chan has been meaning to catch up with her for some time now."
The shark added, "So that leaves me and Baelz, then? Cool! I've already got a game I've always wanted to try out for some time now. Hope she's up for it."
Kiara hummed positively, "Sweet! Sounds like we all got something in mind. Now, let's all make sure to let them and the managers kno-"
Amelia shrieked, "Waitwaitwaitwait! Why do I have to get stuck with the Warden?! I mean, I get why, but that's not the point. She sucks and is only gonna praise herself the entire stream. What can we even play together?"
Ina'is gave a small grin. "Ame, I know one game you and the Warden can play."
Amelia hesitated, and then asked reluctantly. "H-huh? Which one?"
Overcooked 2
Takanashi Kiara asked, "Hey, Mumei. Don't you think that fast food is like a big, big hallmark of modern civilization?"
Nanashi Mumei hummed as she contemplated. "Well, I think food in general's very, very important for civilization. After all, if we don't eat, we die, right? And, and many different cultures have their own unique way of preparing food. So yeah, I'd think so."
The orange-haired girl chirped with glee. "Great! In that case, welcome aboard to KFP! You may call me 'Tenchou' as we work. We use 100% chicken and are certainly 0% a cult."
The more masochistic KFP employees and defiant Hoomans begged to differ. Kiara, however, wasn't having any of their so-called 'accusations and slander'. The phoenix, in spite of her chat's demands that she play as the granny, chose the character with blue glasses, and the owl decided on the rat.
"Wait, Mumei, no, no, no! That's not a ratfolk, it's just a giant, mutated, rat. Think of the health code violations!"
The latter begged, "But he looks like he's such a good boy! And besides, I hear he graduated top of his class!"
The franchise owner deadpanned, "Oh yeah, says who?" leading the wanderer to beam.
"Why, all of civilization! Isn't that right, chat?" Both sides agreed, so Kiara let it slide for now.
. . . . .
With but a few minor mishaps here and there from learning the game, the pair quickly got to level 2-1. There, they started making Kiara's signature food, fried chicken. There were also fries too, but who goes to a chicken place for the fries alone? A bunch of hungry customers on the other side of the mystical serving platform, that's who.
As each girl was put on separate rafts, Mumei having to chop and Kiara having to do the rest, it should've been a simple job. Then, Kiara got bored of waiting for things to fry and started chucking chicken legs at the Guardian of Civilization nonstop, not really caring that the latter's counter was filled with chopped chicken. At least, not until an order asked for fries and Mumei could not make room on the cutting board.
. . . . .
The phoenix ordered, "Mumei, c'mon! We need that potato in the fryer yesterday!"
The owl cried out, "I- I don't know how! There's this rope in the way, and the rafts aren't together! Oh man, the customer's gonna leave hungryyyy…" For a brief second, only the sounds of the game could be heard as Mumei's character spun in circles while Kiara's character stood completely still.
Kiara told her, "J-just throw it to me. It'll reach from here."
Mumei screeched, "You can throw in this one?!" Ah, that would explain a lot.
"Yeah, just hold the 'chop' button and then let go. We've been doing it forever, Mumei."
"Oh, okay. I remember there was one game where you couldn't do that, but I didn't know if this was that one." In one swift maneuver, she tossed the prepared chicken over the river. It sailed right past Kiara and landed straight into the empty fryer basket beside her..
The phoenix gasped delightfully. "W-wow! You got some nice aim! I didn't even know you could do that."
. . . . .
The two birds managed to overcome the challenges that they were served with ease, and their audiences were left only wanting for dessert. They wanted to see how all four holoBirds would handle cooking together, but that was for another stream. After all, there is that cautionary phrase about 'too many cooks'...
Bio Inc.
Though they tried for five minutes, Fauna just couldn't get Calli to render properly on her stream, forcing them to settle with the 'cardboard cutout'. Then again, nature and technology were typically at arms with each other, so this surprised nobody.
The objective of this game's PvP mode? One side had to make sure their target person lived long enough to recover while the other tried their very best to kill the target before that happened. Imagine Plague Inc., but on the scale of an individual and without custom diseases or any miracle 'cures'. Befitting their roles, Fauna started on the Life team, meaning Calli was on team Death.
Calli wasn't having the best of starts, seeing as Fauna managed to counter nearly everything she threw at her patient. The Reaper's apprentice tried everything she could save for unprotected sex, but knowing her audience, it was better that she skip that option. Regardless, the patient wouldn't die fast enough.
After their first match ended, the two players decided to chat for a bit.
The pink-haired girl remarked, "Dang, you really got me good there. How'd you do it?"
The one with green hair replied, "Oh, the diseases you picked didn't share many symptoms with others, so it was easy to figure out which one was which."
"Seriously? Well, that explains a lot! Thanks for telling me. Y'see, Reaper School never really taught us how people die. At least, when it's not all-of-a-sudden and more gradual."
Fauna looked at her picture incredulously. "Really? I thought you'd be knowledgeable on that matter, considering that you're the Grim Reaper's apprentice."
Calli shook her head. "Nah, not even close. Instead, we're taught to recognize the signs that a person is about to die, even ones that most professionals wouldn't see!"
The antlered woman suggested, "Like a death doctor, then? In that case, why don't we switch roles? After all, nature has many ways to kill a person, far more than the body has failsafes."
While Calli's chat accelerated with cries of 'YA BE' and 'Yabai', one special message caught her eye. She chose to read it out loud.
"Sure thing, and uh, 'Calli: I diagnose you with dead'? I mean, I guess that's the first thing I do when I'm on the job." She couldn't understand why her chat exploded with laughter.
. . . . .
Although being on the Life side had the advantage of receiving more points to go to treatments and tests, Calli found herself at the brink of life and death.
"C'mon, Dead Beat," Calli ordered, projecting her fans onto the patient to much comedic effect. "Don't you die on me yet, dawg!"
Somehow, Fauna managed to cripple the digestive system behind her back, causing a domino effect that led to more and more body systems failing.
"Oh dear, it looks like this one will become one with nature soon."
Calli pleaded, "C'mon, c'mon! Just a bit more, time!" She smacked her desk as the results screen appeared on both streams, proclaiming Fauna's second victory.
Fauna teased, "Ironic that you of all people would ask for a longer life. Don't you realize? All it takes is one little mishap for the rest to build up on, dear Senpai. Oh, and be sure to take care of that body you're borrowing.
She giggled louder, before getting closer to the mic and whispering. "After all, it was alcoholism that really got the ball rolling."
Calli shivered, muttering, "Y-yabe," as she checked her body for a pulse. Her heart beat too fast to keep count.
. . . . .
Despite the little bout with the EN curse early on, the stream went pretty well, with fans loving Calli's protective side and Fauna showing a ruthless precision that could only be described by viewers as 'natural selection'. The Keeper of Nature came out on top, at least for another day.
Cake Bash
Ina exclaimed, "Omigod, they're all so cute!" as she gazed at the selection of desserts to choose from.
Sana replied gleefully, "I know right! I saw a trailer for this game, and they have a cake slice that looks like a galaxy!"
The priestess gasped incredulously. "Really? A galaxy cake?"
"Yeah! Their name's Spaice," answered Sana, making sure to emphasize the 'i'. "It doesn't seem like they're available yet. Hmm, maybe we have to do this thing here."
Ina checked the requirements. "Three matches at the 'Birthday'? Is that a stage?"
"Oh! I think I know this one! See, I saw this one stage in another trailer, where it looked like it was on the moon! And then," Sana continued on her tangent, explaining why she wanted to play this game so badly based on her first impressions.
"Humu humu…" Ina muttered, intently listening to her go on. She wondered how AO-chan felt about Sana joining hololive. The tanned girl ended up choosing the purple-frosted 'Cinni', while Ina settled on the violet 'Clairiver'.
Sana turned to her and asked, "Really, you like eclairs?"
Ina shook her head. "No, but I wanted us to match. After all, I clair about you a lot!" To eclair-ify, this was only the beginning of Ina's nonstop pun train.
. . . . .
"Takodachis, we've gone over this. You get your cookies on Cookie Day. You gotta wait!" Ina scolded her chat as she spent the chocolate coins she got from minigames placings on the gachapon machine in the shop corner.
For only 2 coins, one could get an accessory worth 4, or even 6 coins! But if one was unlucky, they'd get green glowing garbage that would cost 2 more coins to toss out, or else suffer a large point penalty at the end. Like Mario Party, these points, not the coins, would determine the victor. From the way things looked, it seemed Ina wasn't gonna win this round.
Sana jested, "Still tryna fatten `em up for takoyaki, Ina-senpai? I know that's AO-chan's favorite!" Somehow, Ina roped her into spending her coins on the machine as well, as to 'live vicariously through other people's gacha.'
The Speaker of Space managed to get three-of-a-kind on the 6-coin accessory. Since this combined them into one mega-accessory worth much more than the sum of its parts, she had a large lead.
"NO! N-no, not at all. I've already told everyone, they're not actually takos. They're… some, other thing," Ina hurriedly explained.
"Sure, sure. Whatever you say, oh High Priestess."
In the chat, AO-chan typed, When are we going to get takoyaki again? It's been a while…
Ninomae Ina'is bluntly ordered, "N-not now, AO-chan."
. . . . .
They played a few more matches, with the winner varying based on how 'generous' the gachapon machine was. Once, they got so much garbage that one of the CPUs won by a landslide! Though the game didn't have a whole lot of different content to it, being a party game and all, it was still quaint, cute, and more than sweet enough to inflict diabetes on generations to come.
Sea of Thieves
"Oooohhhh, what do you do with a drunken sailor~, what do you do with a drunken sailor~, what do you do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning?" Gura sang as she steered the 'SS ChimAera,' as suggested by a knowledgeable fan.
Her partner Baelz, the concept of Chaos herself, continued the song, "We'll put him in a long boat `til he's sober~, put him in a long boat `til he's sober~, put him in a long boat `til he's sober~, early in the morning!"
Upon hearing this, the shark let go of the steering wheel and walked all the way over to the figurehead, where the rat played the accordion.
The last Atlantean remarked, "I-, that's not how the song goes. You, you don't just… do that."
The unofficial Chairperson of the Council reasoned, "But the song drags on long enuff as is. What's the harm in skipping the chorus?"
Gura stared at her disapprovingly and rebutted, "You went straight to the third verse."
*CRASH*
When they weren't paying attention, the ship slammed straight into a rock, knocking them both off and sending them into a panic. They rushed to get back onto the boat before it sank into the depths of the sea.
. . . . .
As they cruised to cash in the chest they got from a treasure map, Gura and Baelz saw a ship in the distance sailing towards them. The two decided to give them an 'ahoy~' as they crossed paths.
"Are you Gawr Gura?!" cried out a voice from the passing ship. Suddenly, the other boat did a complete u-turn to try and catch up to them.
The two vtubers looked at each other, afraid that they got caught. However, it seemed that they were not stream snipers, so the streamers decided to bluff their way out... despite having names like 'GOORA' and 'Chaos Bae Tenshi'.
Putting on her best Australian accent, Gura replied, "A-... no, mate. My name is… Jula Jawl. Yep, no similarities at all! My friends call me 'Jewel'!"
"And I'm Hosak D. B.!" added Baelz, throwing in a Southern accent for fun.
The same pirate asked, "D.B.? What's that stand for?"
"Ho-sak DEEZ BALLZ!" (T/N: 'Hoe, suck deez ballz!', Risu would be proud, probably.)
Everyone but the first pirate burst into laughter. Slowly, the other ship turned around and continued with its original bearing.
In the distance, the two girls could hear a faint voice. "Hah! They got you good there! I bet this'll be clipped. Thousands of views, too!"
"Shut up… And send me the link when it shows up."
. . . . .
Save for a mishap where they left a Chest of Sorrow on the ship, Gura and Baelz had a relatively chill stream. The two had fun and planned for a second livestream in the future. In the meantime, Gura would practice singing in a pirate voice...
5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel
"Watson," Kronii stated, venom oozing from every decibel.
"I hear ya, Kronii. And you're to address me as 'Ame-senpai', got it?" Ame replied, clearly enjoying lording her authority over the Warden of time.
"Oh yeah, laugh all you want now, but when we're done here, I will have my watch back."
The detective feigned ignorance. "Your watch? I have one right here, but I don't see your name on it anywhere. Ah, but what I do see is my family symbol engraved onto it!"
"You mean the symbol that you carved onto MY watch after you stole it!"
"Hm, let's agree to disagree. Kraft Mac & Cheese, Kraft Dinner, eh?" Watson heard a loud *thud* come from Kronii's mic. It didn't take a private investigator to know what she did.
"You- you'll rue today, Watson. After all, when it comes to chess, you'll find that I'm the superior being!"
. . . . .
Kronii was right. All those hours of playing 'waifu chess' seemed to pay off, as she was able to plan ahead to try and corner Amelia, who played sloppily and left openings everywhere.
But that's where everything started falling apart for the Warden of Time. Initially, she only planned ahead, with the natural flow of time. Meanwhile, Ame was far looser with time, and so she adjusted to the time-traveling strategy part of the game faster while her kouhai struggled with the extra options. Or maybe she was just that lucky.
For example, right when Kronii had the board set up for a mate-in-two, the detective sent the endangered king back to an earlier phase of the game, right before she castled. And yes, Amelia learned more advanced chess maneuvers like castling solely so she could beat the Warden.
Kronii scanned her once winning board, stupefied. "W-what did you just do?"
Ame replied haughtily, "Oh y'know. Sent my king back in time. No big deal."
The blue-haired girl worriedly stated, "But that means the king's no longer on this board! How am I supposed to checkmate you if there's no king?!"
The blonde laughed like a noblewoman and explained. "That's the neat part, you don't." She kept on laughing until she realized that she now had two kings to protect on the same board.
For a while, both sides remained silent. Then, the Warden regained her composure and declared, "Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle shall be legendary!" all as her eyes screamed 'HELP ME!' to everyone, even Amelia.
. . . . .
Kronii managed to get a feel for the mechanics at the cost of her brain and started gaining an advantage on multiple boards at once. She smugly boasted, "Give it up, Watson. I am four parallel universes ahead of you."
The inventor of the Watson Concoction retorted, "Good luck! I'm behind 7 timelines! BREEEEEEE-" as she started yet another timeline to put Kronii's king in check. The latter's bishop stood directly above Ame's queen and beside the king, unable to protect the piece this time.
"GWAK!" shouted the Kroniicopter, acting as if she got shot down. She continued feebly, "Ugh, call an ambulance, call an ambulance…
"But not for me." She changed her tone abruptly as she moved a copy of the aforementioned bishop from an adjacent board onto the attacked board. Since the bishop always uses two axes of movement equally, it moved one space vertically and one space 'across parallel branches of time', allowing it to capture the offending piece by crossing space and time in equal measures.
Amelia hissed. Though this wasn't part of the plan, the extra timelines she opened up were available to her now that her opponent created another one herself. She still had a chance to corner her.
. . . . .
For once, chat couldn't backseat this game at all, mostly because nobody knew what was going on. The game's 'Psychological Horror' tag was no joke. The only thing that could be understood over the constant shrieks and yells were the sounds of violence against furniturekind.
Still, and neither of them would ever outright admit it, the two idols had a lot of fun playing with each other. Perhaps, they found a new way to settle their differences. Nobody, save for the hardest of tryhards, would mind watching them play again in the future, anyway.
Bonus: Raft
"This is stupid," Gura asserted, her hook having missed a floating plank for the third time in a row. Only five minutes in, and the game already managed to make her rage at her lack of accuracy. Then, she had a brilliant idea.
"Hey, Mumei. Why are we still using these dumb hooks to catch our supplies when we can just, y'know, swim over to them?"
The Guardian pondered for a moment, and then shrugged. "I know there's a reason, but I can't remember why…" But by the time she finished speaking, the white-haired girl was already halfway towards a floating barrel full of goodies.
"Hehehe, come to Gura~" She expected to be rewarded for her cleverness. The game chose to reward her by making her screen turn red and cutting her health by nearly a third.
"AHHHHHH!" Gura shrieked, swimming back as fast as she could while a predator below the waves chased after her character.
"Oh, that's why! There's an angy shark in the water. Guess I forgot to mention that," Mumei reasoned, bearing the biggest smirk on her face.
"Come on! Don't mock me like that!"
"No, no. I meant the other shark. Doesn't seem like you're good friends." Mumei started making a spear, realizing why such a recipe existed.
"We're not! I need help!"
"Don't you worry, Senpai. I'll save you!" Mumei declared before diving in to fight off the aggressor.
. . . . .
Finally, after several more encounters with the raft-wrecker, 'Angy' was slain through their combined efforts. The wanderer found out she could scavenge Angy for food and, more importantly, a shark head that she immediately put on her character.
The owl placed the newfound shark fillets on the grill, leaving space for nothing else. Once it finished cooking, she passed one over to the Atlantean, who tried to give it back.
While nibbling on a cooked fillet, Mumei stared directly at her, stating, "C'mon, it's good. You gotta eat. It's a shark-eat-shark world after all." There was no hate in her words, just pure sadistic satisfaction.
The shark girl whined, "No thanks. I lost my appetite. And that's not how it goes."
When Gura next went to bed, she woke up face-to-face with Angy's head. Now, it was mounted directly above her bed, with a sign plainly saying 'Final Warning'. The monument faced the open sea, so it was certainly warning future sharks that might show up… Right?
. . . . .
Fans would agree that Gura had it coming, and that Mumei was definitely the last person on holoCouncil you'd want to piss off. It seemed that even if Mumei forgot to get mad, she knew exactly how to get that revenge. On a completely related note, Gura would suddenly get quiet any time the Guardian's name came up from that point on.
A/N: This one took a lot of thinking, both to figure out which games would suit each duo well and how they would turn out. My brain still aches from trying to explain 5D chess from what I saw when RTGame played it. Still, I hope you enjoyed this extended special!