Hm... A little light on the Reviews here... But I can work with what I've got.
Though for future reference: MAKE SURE TO "EMAIL OPT-IN" OR YOU WON'T GET ALERTS!
It's complete bullshit that you have to actively turn it on, as opposed to choosing to turn it off after having "On" as the Default, but anyway...
Harleking31: I mean when we take into account the training Mido went through at the beginning of the series, it's safe to assume there are dumpsters everywhere. But I'm not sure if heroes would bother with them, they didn't with the beach one.
He's acquired. A wrench! *Zelda item acquisition jingle*
Tentacles are great, so useful for every situation
Hm, less invention gremlin chaos than expected
I'd have set the trash panda on fire too after it had been doused in Gasoline tbh, videogame training would have kicked in
Re: Izuku lived right on the coastline, whereas Takei is further inland. And like I elucidated, treating environmental cleanup like a PR stunt is a common ploy of the current Hero market. In my opinion, before All Might retires, at least 3/4ths of the Heroes in the over-saturated market are like Red Nose from One Punch Man from the episode with the suicide jumper that Saitama saves with a pair of chopsticks and making the ultimate sacrifice; the salmon from his bento box...
It's not an Omni-wrench, but it'll do. For now~
Oh believe me, there's plenty of time for Mei to get her MythBusters on.
P.S.
Also, a bit of soft-retconning is that a "Fireteam" in the organizational sense will be replaced with "Squadron", the GGO equivalent to Guilds in Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online. Players can still call themselves a "Fireteam", but the actual organization will henceforth be referred to as a "Squadron".
*AHA*
Following that disaster with the "Trash Panda from Hell", the Mon Squad had been fretting over me like crazy. They couldn't do anything when they were out at work apart from constantly harassing me for progress reports through my phone, so apart from when they were actively fighting crime, the only moment I had a bit of peace to myself was escaping into "The Matrix". With how concentration-intensive the game was, even though my AmuSphere Ultra could take calls from the real world, the customized voice message dissuaded them unless the content was actually important.
The third school semester had started for everyone else, but since I still had until April to go, when I wasn't tending the house, studying for middle school, prepping dinner, taking inventory for the pantry, or exercising downstairs in the gym, I was playing Gun Gale Online or minding the chatroom through the game's real-world portal.
The Mon Squad Squadron's "Birthday Video" for their newest member had started to spread among the player base, but I didn't want to make Friends using that as my platform, since in all likelihood they just wanted an "in" with the Mon Squad; either digitally or in reality. That, or, they wanted to buy out my Account.
To that end, whenever I was walking about the SBC Glocken, I wore a drab green hooded cloak to conceal my identity. The cat ears atop my head fit snugly under the hood, but it took a while to get my tail under control to the point that I could coil it around my waist like the Saiyans did in Dragonball Z.
I felt totally ridiculous, but the ploy did its job.
While combing the SBC Glocken for easy EXP via the "Fetch Quests" handed out by the various NPCs, something I noticed was that while rare, Avatars with Heteromorphic traits weren't so rare they bordered on nonexistent. Some of them might've been influenced by the Mutant traits they had IRL, were lucky-enough to draw the lot, or had purchased the account from someone else; but what put most of them apart from myself, was they were largely anthropomorphic, instead of the cosmetic "add-ons" my Avatar had.
Digging a little into the in-game Lore as I ground for EXP, the "explanation" for Humans with animal or entirely-inhuman traits, was that in the waning days of Earth before "The Great Exodus", there was a fashion trend known as "Exotics" where people would use Biosculpting, which created physical forms ranging from animal-like to inhuman. Vat-grown tails, furred skins, hooves, animal-like faces and ears, cat eyes, and other semi-human features were the highlights of the style. Exotic fashion was, to be expected, incredibly expensive and time-consuming, usually a hobby among only the very rich if not the very bored.
Facial Sculpts combined vat-grown parts such as muzzles, whiskers, animal-like ears, manes, and cat eyes with the patient's normal features, with entire booster gangs based around various animal motifs prior to the Exodus. Tails were similarly grown in vats using gene bank tissue, and could be furred, tinted, scaled, or bare, the tails grafted to the base of the spine and linked to the nervous system by nanotech nerve threaders. Hooves, claws, and paws could be grafted to replace normal feet and hands, though were hardly as-dexterous as normal digits. Skin Alteration used tailored DNA to transformative the structure of the patient's skin, including patterned fur, scales, or just exotic colorations, with the big drawback being the 1-in-10 chance that the graft would mutate and develop into skin cancer. "Playbeings", as the name unobtrusively implied, modified themselves to experience greater sexual pleasure.
The in-game explanation certainly made the "Biosculpting Clinics" I saw around the SBC Glocken for Avatar alteration make thematic sense. Given how-many zeroes there were behind each treatment and their varying extremes, it certainly explained why some would rather buy an account off of someone, instead of just making alterations to their own Avatars piecemeal. Eye and hair color were the cheapest treatments available, and certainly explained why some of the SBC Glocken looked like an anime convention; doubly-so because the game's robust crafting system allowed for hyper-stylized attire that just barely skirted copyright infringement.
With how many "bikini armors" I saw being touted about, I guessed even if you weren't into the PvP or PvE, you could still use GGO to live out various body fantasies…
*AHA*
National Foundation Day on the 11th of February was the celebration of the accession date of the legendary first Emperor of Japan, Emperor Jimmu, which converted into the Gregorian calendar took place in 660 BC. Though in present day the public holiday is enforced by a specific Cabinet Order, as-usual, Hero-related news was viewed as more-important than the founding of the country everyone was fucking standing on!
Since this was essentially the same as brushing off the 4th of July, America's Independence Day, for celebrity nonsense, I escaped into the virtual world a little earlier than usual…
Though it had been a month or so since I'd started playing GGO, my quest for online Friends within the media… had not met with the success I'd have wished it to.
As soon as most of the applicants realized who I was after recognizing me from the video, that was when the favors and the bribes started coming out. Suffice it to say, I ported out almost immediately, and then blocked them from the chatroom IRL.
This number was in the majority.
Following those were the players only interested in my Avatar and how-much they could buy my Account off of me for. As it turned out, 1 Megacredit was worth 1,000,000 in-game Credits or G. And since 100 electronic currency was the equivalent of 1 Japanese Yen, that meant 1 Megacredit was worth 10,000 Yen, or around 70 USD. No-one had yet to offer Megacredits in the double digits, but it went without saying that I wrote them off as well.
This number was slightly less than the brown-nosers, but still fairly significant.
After that were the Hero Worshippers. Even though I advertised explicitly on the chatroom that I wanted competent players and mature conversation about Heroes, politics, and capitalism on top of other forms of "social commentary", as soon as they opened their mouths and started gushing endlessly about who their favorite Heroes were, what endorsed products they bought, what catchphrases they memorized, and who they thought should be more-popular than whoever else…
This number, which I was swift to write off, was a fairly large portion of the applicants that remained after the first two vetting processes. And it also went without saying that I vetted all the 5-year-olds that defied the age restrictions to play, as well as the men and/or women who seemed a little too into my Avatar beyond the bartered price of purchase.
Thankfully, before I could contemplate loosening my restrictions on who I wanted to Friend for my own Squad, I met my diamonds in the rough.
*AHA*
The first GGO player I met who actually met expectations was an intimidating Player by the name of Stendhal. Garbed head to toe in red and black bulletproofed clothing with bits of bike armor-like plating on his extremities, he had a number of folding knives synched on his chest, larger knives on his boots, across the small of his back, as well as a katana of all things. Most-striking was his visor-like mask which completely covered his face, the long stem-stalk ponytail giving off heavy Chuuni vibes.
At first I thought he'd be another write-off, a roleplayer who insisted on only using knives and blades despite the current meta, who would always rush headlong into gunfire either because he'd seen too many samurai flicks or he was just touched in the head.
As soon as we started talking politics however, I realized that he was legitimately concerned about the roles that Heroes played in this country.
The guy was a bit extremist when it came to whether or not Heroes who received compensation for the work they did could even call themselves "Heroes" by nostalgic metric of a bygone era that had more or less completely vanished from the industry… But at the very least he was mature-enough that he could contemplate counter-arguments about how payment increased the availability, if not the moral fortitude, of the day's Heroes. And while the guy was a bit of an All Might fanboy, that what he admired about the guy was his alleged heroic spirit of self-sacrifice in stark contrast to those dominating the majority of the industry…
I chose to withhold my opinions of the guy and not alienate myself from the first Player who didn't find my worldviews a turn-off and "Rage Quit" on me after shouting many expletives in my face and/or calling me a "Villain sympathizer". Instead, I talked about the Hero who inspired me; Kotetsu Kaburagi aka "Wild Tiger", or "Wild Tiger: One Minute" during his brief stint in the Second League before his major comeback into the First League with the advent of the Buddy System. To my pleasant surprise, Stendhal too knew who Wild Tiger was, recognizing him as the "Proto-All Might" of the latter half of the Corporate Age.
After having an honest man-to-man talk with someone who didn't treat me like a fucking child, I actually started believing some of the hype, even if I was still disenfranchised to most Heroes by and large.
The guy was still obsessed with knife-based combat in PvP, even using the [Training Weights] item that rendered his Avatar largely capable of only what he could do IRL based on biometric readings the AmuSphere took. If I hadn't already seen Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online and seen in-world special forces use GGO as a training aid due to its physics engine, I'd have thought Stendhal was off his freakin' gourd. And yet, despite the handicap he self-imposed most of the time, the guys strength, speed, and agility were easily above that of the average Quirk-reliant Hero, and he might've even given Kotetsu a run for his money back when he was alive.
I definitely didn't want to run into the guy in a back alley IRL if his technique within the VRMMO was anything to go by.
*AHA*
A while later, drawn in by the allure of "social commentary" was Dust_2_Dust.
The guy was slim with messy grayish-blue hair and had opted for bloodshot-looking red eyes. His attire was predominantly black, with a facemask like Bane's from the live-action movie, only the piping was horizontal, like grasping fingers. That the guy showed up wearing a [Metamaterial Optical Camouflage Mantle], a light-distorting piece of Equipment that, via the Real Money Trade (RMT) system that cost around 300,000 real-world Yen, had me thinking he was a "Whale" who used microtransactions to get ahead of everyone else by paying his way through.
Thankfully, he didn't seem interested in trying to buy my Account off of me, and the fact that he wasn't a mindless Hero-worshiping sheep, definitely worked out in his favor.
Politically, the guy felt that the over-saturation of Heroes made people lazy, complacent even, to and especially to the suffering of others around them, to the point that they would wait for Heroes to save other people, if not even themselves, instead of taking any sort of affirmative action when someone in trouble was right in front of them. Given how specific he got into it, I felt like, similar to myself, he too had been "let down".
At one point in our chats as we hunted Mobs for Drops, he went on a tirade about how the Hero system should be abolished altogether, showing that he had become disenfranchised far worse than I had been. Either that, or he didn't know enough about how the world worked to realize that abolishing law enforcement altogether was a really fucking bad idea.
Man-child tendencies aside, he was still good company to bounce politic off of. Although the first time he and Stendhal met, they got really in one another's' faces about their contradictory belief systems.
Of course, whenever I was able to keep them mission oriented, the two of them were absolute monsters in PvE as well as PvP. While my speed and smaller hitbox were all I had going for me at the time, Stendhal could turn his enemies into digital sashimi with frightening amounts of dexterity, whereas Dust_2_Dust had an arsenal out the freakin' wazooo of powerful and exotic-looking weaponry that'd look right at home in games like Destiny or the later Halo installments.
Of course, three Players a Squad does not make, and the two of them were infrequently available to play, so I continued my search for Friends beyond the Mon Squad, Hitomi, and Mitsumi.
*AHA*
The next guy I was able to take seriously was another CQC headcase like Stendhal.
The muscle-bound Bullet Punch, looking like a "Lucha Libre" variant of the Tank Top Heroes from One Punch Man, was a hot-blooded battle junkie whose answer to everything in GGO was "punch it" or "punch it harder". I questioned the mentality of such in a world dominated by robots, mutants, and guns, thinking he'd be better suited to one of the boxing VRs, but apparently the ring was too-structured for someone like him, who wailed on his enemies until their HP hit 0. He only wore the [Training Weights] alternately, but even when he did… the guy was an absolute beast in close-quarters combat, and it didn't help that his Avatar was in the same size range as Tio's.
When I asked how he got so-good at fisticuffs since there wasn't any "auto-skill" for CQC in GGO, my warning bells started to go off when he said that his "boss" wanted him to use VR to blow off some steam so he wouldn't make any messes IRL for "the organization" to clean up. However, since he never asked me for any personal information, considering I didn't have the full picture, I decided that maybe Bullet Punch was one of those guys who got too into roleplaying and was using GGO to escape a mundane reality.
Not everyone with a powerful Quirk, if not just jacked as hell, wanted-to or even could become a Hero.
He definitely wasn't one for long-winded conversation about social commentary, but his energy was infectious, and I couldn't help but enjoy the man's company.
When it comes to how the two of us found one another despite my exacting criteria...
Well, you got me. By all accounts it doesn't make sense.
*AHA*
After him was Sefgas, someone who genuinely did seek me out because of social commentary.
The guy was a little taller than me in VR, clad mostly in green army fatigues with a gas mask, helmet, and oxygen tanks, with a slight obsession with gas warfare. Choosing to wield revolvers, the most-available firearm IRL for civilians in Japan, the way he spoke hinted that he was around my age if not a little younger. What stopped me from cutting ties with him was his ardently spoken belief how, no matter how-impressive a person's Quirk was, it didn't change the fact that they were still "only human"; something that'd fallen to the wayside when the MCU became "the U".
His discipline and willingness to wait until the right time to strike, also won me over when it came to ambushing Ps or Es; a pleasant departure from Bullet Punch who would more often than not break cover because he got tired of waiting the extra few seconds it would've taken for us to surround the other Squad we'd been hunting in their entirety.
His borderline obsession with gas warfare was a little disconcerting, but given gaseous emissions were among the most-common among Emitter-Type Quirks, maybe he was just using the robust physics engine of GGO to practice?
It wasn't like he could really practice IRL. Even if you went into the ass-end wilderness in the middle of nowhere, you were still shit out of luck with how tightly-packed people got on an island nation like Japan...
Honestly, with how-restrictive Improper Quirk Usage laws were, it was a wonder anyone could get into Hero Schools.
*AHA*
Not so much a Friend as a Friend-of-a-Friend I made through Dust_2_Dust.
Broker G was a very ordinary looking man, choosing to wear dress pants and a matching blazer instead of the "military chique" that dominated the rest of the SBC Glocken. Bald-headed with an army cap, he had a small mustache and a goatee, and seemed more like an info broker than anything.
The guy was a little shady, especially when he talked about how he could "get you (me) anything IRL" since I was a friend of Dust_2_Dust's. However, after he caught on to the fact that I was a completely ordinary civilian who also was not loaded, if not the fact that I was the "young ward" of a semi-famous niche Hero Agency from a town with a lower-than-average crime rate, he stopped appearing before me in-person/Avatar altogether.
Eh, not my business if he was up to anything shady. He was probably small-time anyway if he was using a VRMMO as a meeting point.
. . . Or was him using a VRMMO as a meeting point secretly brilliant?
Hm. Thoughts for another day.
*AHA*
5ilencer after him also possessed an ordinary-looking Avatar; albeit, one with a thing for indigo from his clothes to his messy hair.
During our first meeting, it seemed he was feeling me out as much as the other way around, because the first time we started talking in earnest, he asked me what my opinion of "villainous Quirks" was.
My response, was that there were no such thing as "villainous Quirks", only "villainous people", in much the same vein as there were no "bad Pokémon", only "bad Trainers".
He seemed to like that response, and though he had a thing for police-issue sidearms, he also liked running his mouth, mainly in PvP. His material wasn't great or anything, but I figured he must've been practicing his smack-talk for real-world application if his Quirk-related inquiry was any indicator.
That, or he just wanted a venue to vent his real-life frustrations without tangible reprisal. To each their own. And at the very least, he didn't resort to the low-brow "yo momma" joke for the easy rise it could get out of people…
*AHA*
With the Friends I'd made thus-far, I decided to put my chatroom searching on hold and just meet people organically. Or at least as "organically" as you could meet someone inside "The Matrix".
Stendhal, Dust_2_Dust, Bullet Punch, Sefgas, and 5ilencer all had wildly differing schedules IRL and didn't have set availabilities, so outside the private chatrooms through the GGO portal IRL, I rarely interacted with more than two of my Friends at a time.
Didn't stop me from trying to "get the band back together".
Right as I was able to make a miracle happen and have the sum of us meet up in-full for the first time, I was recipient to one hell of a shock...
*AHA*
"H-Hatsume!"
"No, Tiger Man, it's Deus Ex Meichina," the salmon-haired girl said pointing to the name placard above her head as she sat across from me in the Mon Squad Squadron HQ in the SBC Glocken.
Her Avatar was about as tall as she was IRL, hair styled in the same-colored dreadlocks only more-symmetrical, her eyes the same color but lacking the same crosshair patterns her Quirk gave her IRL. What was a shocking departure were the massive… "sweater pillows", her in-game Avatar came equipped with, the coveralls she was wearing struggling to contain them.
By the snickering of Doppel off in the corner, it was obvious that she'd given the crosshair-eyed girl a minus-sized piece of equipment on purpose before letting her in.
Of course, her Avatar was less-important than-
"Why are you here?!"
"I don't have any friends my own age, so I thought, why not have one of daddy's interns back-track ya so we could hang out? The Spook Lady was all to eager to help out~"
"Um… What?"
" . . . Is this thing on?" Hatsume asked tugging on my left ear, which actually felt like it was being tugged on even though it was on top of my head. "I SAID-!"
"I heard what you said; I suppose I should've asked 'why'?"
"Oh, well, for some reason, I can't really get along with other kids my age. Mommy and daddy say it's because my brain intimidates them, but I don't know how a bundle of nervous tissue taking up only two-percent of my sum body mass hiding inside of my skull can be intimidating."
"I seeeeee…"
"She's your fangirl~" Kuroko grinned at me when I turned to her for advice. "Why not Friend her, let her join that little Squadron you're putting together?"
"It's just a Squad, not a full-blown Squadron. If I went off and made a Squadron of my own, you'd be down one Mascot."
"Well aren't you lippy today?"
"I kind of had plans with my internet friends, and this just complicates things."
"Doesn't mean you can't Friend her and take her along~"
" . . . Fine. But I don't want any other tagalongs, you understand me? This squad participates in mature, grown-up conversation, and I don't want to babysit any five-year-olds."
Too many PTSD flashbacks from Overwatch and the like…
"Yeah, yeah. We've got shit to do IRL anyway," Doppel shrugged, she and Kuroko porting out leaving Hatsume and I alone in the Squadron HQ.
"So, where we going?"
"Huuuuugh…!"
"Hey, you okay there? Your AmuSphere calibrated properly?" she asked tapping my forehead.
"I'm probably going to deeply regret this."
-thought I to myself as I added her to my Friends list.
*AHA*
Compared to the anime I recall, the real-life AmuSphere gets most but not all of the sensations right.
Sight and Hearing are 1:1, but Smell and Taste alongside are somewhat muted. At the various bars throughout the Space Battle Cruiser Glocken, the bar snacks, while still allowing for taste of Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, and Savory, were largely lacking in the texture, making the actual eating more of a chore. I can understand someone using it as a "Cheat Code" for their IRL diets, but eating in-game just isn't for me; if I'm feeling peckish, I'll just quit playing and make myself a sandwich like a sensible human being.
Of course, despite the fact that it was a very reasonable safety measure to have in place, people still found ways to jailbreak their VR consoles and wound up starving themselves to death...
Touch as well as the sense of pain, hot, and cold were also dulled, or too "fake" to be 100% immersive, but given bullet wounds hurt "like a motherfucker" according to everyone who had gotten shot in the history of "ever", I could see why the Admins mandated the muting of pain responses.
My sense of spatial awareness also felt a bit muted inside the game as though the "scaling" were slightly skewed, and it took a bit of adjusting to get used to so I wouldn't bump into everything around me.
While it wasn't as-immersive as in the anime/light novels, that this level of immersion could be invented and thusly utilized by humans at all was to put it frankly, amazing. Apart from diving into the Rifts for commercial gain, VRs of this caliber were the closest one could get to going to another world.
Of course, it also helped that the "Gun Punk" setting of GGO always interested me more than the fantasy side of thing.
That and Karen/LLENN was a more-endearing main character than Kazuto "Light Novel Protag-kun" Kirigaya.
Where was I going with this?
Oh, right.
So! Here I am, taking Hatsume with me to the unofficial "Chronos Squadron" rendezvous point; a little hole-in-the-wall that I feel like some of the game's programmers snuck in due to the slightly-more-grounded feel of the place, sorta like an Easter Egg. As we're walking through the SBC Glocken, Hatsume seemed blissfully unaware of all the eyes ogling her Avatar. For fuck's sake, don't these perverts have anything better to do than stare at fake boobs on the internet?!
. . .
Nevermind! I already had the answer for that all along…
"Wild Tiger," Stendhal greeted as he stepped out of an alley. "Who is this?"
"Some girl I saved IRL that my handlers dropped in my lap…" I sighed tiredly.
"He stopped me from getting eaten by a giant trash panda someone lit on fire!" Hatsume grinned.
" . . . Truly?" the blade-user questioned after processing that such a thing, could in fact, happen in real life.
"I really wish it wasn't."
"Hm. Well, come along. This will be the first time we've all been able to meet at the same time."
"Mei," I said over my shoulder abridging that ridiculous UserName of hers. "Just keep your mouth shut and try not to embarrass me, okay?"
"Okey-dokey, Tiger Man!"
Swear to god…!
*AHA*
First person I noticed in the little hole-in-the-wall was Dust_2_Dust, nursing a beverage I wasn't entirely sure he was old-enough to drink IRL given the way he acted; there actually was an [Intoxicated] de-buff in-game that fucked up your hand-eye coordination and balance, and the only reason I can think that the CEO or whoever let it be added was for a deeper level of immersion to attract a more "mature" playerbase.
Based on how much boob-ogling had occurred on the way here, I doubt that goal has been met.
Sitting next to him with an amber-colored bubbly drink with his gas mask off was Sefgas, talking about something I couldn't quite hear. Dust_2_Dust was a bit of a man-child at times, so maybe they had similar interests?
Off in another corner was Bullet Punch regaling 5ilencer with a story that likely involved a great deal of face-punching with how many jabs he was throwing out into the air or into his own hand. Based on the look on 5ilencer's face, the question he had likely asked at the start of the conversation, had not been answered.
"Alright, Wild Tiger's here," Stendhal announced as he shut the door behind us, an actually-usable latch sealing other Players out.
With how many twists and turns it took to get here, I really did think this might've been an Easter Egg of sorts. Something to reward Players that took their time to explore the SBC Glocken's many twists and turns.
Moving on…
"So, how's the first 'Unofficial Chronos Squadron' meeting treating you all?" I inquire.
"Who's the shortie with the big… personality?" Sefgas asked after getting his mask back on.
"Wild Tiger here has himself a fangirl~" Stendhal grinned with an arm around my shoulder.
"Dude, not cool!" Bullet Punch groaned. "Bros before hoes, you know?"
"What do gardening implements have to do with this?" Hatsume asked curiously with a tilt of her head.
"I think her INT is a bit lacking," Dust_2_Dust said sourly, downing his drink before smashing it into the floor, the glass shattering into pixelized fragments. "So, we have the Scout, the Dark Paladin, the Rogue, the Wizard, the Bard, the Fighter, and the Porter…" he accounted pointing to me, Stendhal, himself, Sefgas, 5ilencer, Bullet Punch, and Hatsume in that order. "What now? We gonna hit up a raid boss, or just a bit of PvP and tea bagging?"
"Hold on, why the hell am I a 'Bard'?" 5ilencer asked.
"Because you always run your mouth, that's why," Sefgas answered with a smirk.
"At least I'm not an epic fart joke waiting to happen."
"I just wanna go punch something!" Bullet Punch grinned pounding his fists together.
"I have some 'True Story' Quests lined up. We can use the dartboard to decide," I say drawing some scraps of paper from my Inventory, complete with hand-written notes, which in some cases was more-practical than navigating the in-game Map and Note System through the Menu.
Initially I wondered why people in the 23rd Century still used finger-based controls for their VRMMOs. As it turned out, Blink Commands and Thought Commands quickly proved impractical since the human eye was incredibly involuntary, and the human mind itself was a mud pit of random thoughts and other garbage; both of which made anything but manual controls nearly impossible to use.
"Meichina… How's your aim?"
"No idea!"
"Well, you certainly picked the right game to find out, I guess…" Dust_2_Dust whined petulantly.
*AHA*
Surprisingly-enough, Hatsume's aim was pretty good. At least as far as darts were concerned. The dartboard "mini-game" didn't really make use of the [Bullet Circle], but then again, neither did thrown knives or grenades unless they were ejected from some kind of launcher, like a repeater crossbow or a grenade launcher.
Hatsume's Stats were at the beginner level, so Dust_2_Dust's assessment that she was our "Porter" was more or less accurate. She didn't carry anything we couldn't afford to lose in case she bit the dust or anything, but it certainly let the rest of us stock up on ammo and other essentials before heading out. Of course, to be safe, I equipped her with some of the cast-offs from my various attempts at Crafting. And the only reason there were "cast-offs" at all was because you couldn't re-spec something once it had been made; hence why Crafting was a gamble, due to the chances of making something worse than store-bought gear about as likely as making something better.
Crafting specific items required a [Blueprint] and a [Dexterity] and/or [Intelligence] Stat to match, or just "disassembling" a certain item enough times for [Blueprint Fragment]s. Some [Blueprint]s could be found as Drops, or as Quest Rewards, but some of the rarer [Blueprint]s had to be purchased from in-game shops or traded from other Players. You could also make custom items with the in-game engine, or even use a CAD File from the IRL and then convert it into an in-game file through the GGO portal, which created a lucrative sub-market for custom-made guns, melee weapons, grenades, and so-on. At first it confused me why I saw so many Buster Swords and Holy Hand Grenades and Good Samaritans, but then I remembered how the novel and live-action movie for Ready Player One more or less operated on a similar principle when it came to crafting in-game items.
There weren't any full-blown drivable mechs or anything in GGO outside of Quest Items, but there was a limited vehicle creation kit since the overworld map was fairly large. Nothing as obscene as what you could create in games like Crossout, but with how labor-intensive it was to make custom vehicles, the meta on that front had remained fairly stable after enough balancing had been done. Frag Grenades could take out tires and hovercraft, while EMPs could take out anti-grav.
For our purposes, Dust_2_Dust provided the ride; a bitchin' monster truck with anti-grav wheels like something you'd find in Borderlands 3, which only further reinforced my suspicions that Dust_2_Dust was a man-child of sorts with too much money to spend, or just a very rich parent.
Not that I was complaining or anything. The Mon Squad was basically swimming in in-game Credits, though I didn't want to piggyback off of them until I'd done my part to help their brand. The viewership for my "Birthday Stream" was pretty high, apparently, though I didn't look at the comments because that was a rabbit hole I'd never see the bottom of.
As for the content of the first Quest my unofficial Squadron was doing as a sum group, "Based on a True Story" from the American mid-west, our goal was to bring down a "Mobile Fortress" kind of enemy that looked like the unholy lovechild of Mad Max, Metal Gear, and Valkyria Chronicles with a little Mega Man thrown on top to make the whole thing look nice and pretty; in short strokes it resembled a submarine with giant tank treads and bristling with gun emplacements.
Reminded me of that thing with the "Killdozer"; not that anyone would understand the reference since if that happened now, there would be dozens of Quirks that could undermine anything short of Quirk-era "military issue".
Of course, with 23rd century tech, regardless of present stagnation, that just meant the new incarnations of the "Killdozer" were all the more terrifying…
"Geez, and we're supposed to kill that…?" 5ilencer asked as we scouted the thing out with a pair of binoculars.
"I mean… reality is often stranger than fiction…" I mused. The Armor-Piercing Ammo we'd purchased for our weapons on the way out cost a great deal of in-game currency, even with Dust_2_Dust footing most of the bill, but I still felt like, even if this wasn't a full-on Raid Boss, we'd still be in over our heads.
Some of the other VRMMOs had a stupid-high learning curve that made "Get Gud" games like Dark Souls look like the boss fights from Super Mario 64…
"Well, assuming GGO has a realistic physics engine like most of the other engineering simulators on the market," Hatsume began, "I feel like first, we should ascertain its level of armaments, determine if they have overlapping firing cones, determine its maximum clip, and if-possible, discover any readily-exploitable weaknesses."
"I thought you were a Level 1 noob. How the hell is your INT so high?" Dust_2_Dust demanded.
"Don't let her intelligence fool you. Put a flare gun in her hands and she can be a real spaz."
"I only stole your flare gun the one time!"
"Once was enough, thank you!"
"That… sounds like it'd make for one hell of a story," Sefgas replied.
"Get me drunk in the real world someday and I might just tell you," I returned.
I mean sure, you're supposed to keep the IRL to yourself, it's just good netiquette, but half the stuff I've done on my "off days" don't sound too out-of-place among the various VRMMOs… Not to mention that my affiliation with the Mon Squad's Squadron was an open secret at this point.
"I say we cripple it," Stendhal said, unequipping his [Training Weights] and drawing a black and red-accented bladeless hilt from his side before unleashing a brilliant, and legally-distinct, saber of crimson light. "Without those caterpillar treads, it'll never get out of that sand."
"Doesn't seem like a fair fight to me…" Bullet Punch huffed.
"I can think of an entire website of reasons why getting in front of that thing is a bad idea," I replied.
When I started venturing beyond the SBC Glocken on my own, Zombina sat me down for a montage of livestreams where GGO players got taken out by vehicles. Sure, some of them with stupidly-high END were able to climb up onto the hood and rally for a final stand, but more often than not it was the co-pilot who gave them the double-tap before running them over a second time.
"Anyway…" I say lowering the binoculars and taking stock of the more-solid terrain it was patrolling through. "Here's what we're going to do…" I said as I began drawing in the sand.
*AHA*
Cue SAO Alternative: Gun Gale Online OST – [Disc 2] 09 全力疾走
Stendhal and I crested the hill and zig-zagged toward the Field Boss at maximum clip, our legally-distinct sabers of light at our sides, mine a brilliant blue like Obi-Wan Kenobi's but size-calibrated to the length of Yoda's. The thing's mounted turrets angling in on us, crimson Bullet Lines zipping through the air and peppering our bodies, we were quick to split completely away from one another, dodging the bullets that zipped through the projected spaces a scand moment later. Once we got under their effective firing cone, we slashed into the treads and gears with our beam sabers, drawing angry red lines across the metal as we rushed past one another, a series of explosions peppering the left half of the field boss in our wake.
Unfortunately, the thing didn't grind to a halt like we'd anticipated, as its remaining set of treads allowed it to still make left turns; albeit, we'd crippled its ability to turn right anymore. Not only that, but single-shot repeater turrets folded out of the destroyed machinery and gave us fresh hell.
As missile bays on the top tier of the metal monstrosity opened up and began spitting fiery death toward us on top of the replacer turrets, Bullet Lines zig-zagging horizontally and vertically both, Dust_2_Dust in his "Murdermobile" crested the hill in the opposite direction, strafing the metal monstrosity. With 5ilencer manning a high-powered turret, Sefgas lobbed what looked like Acid Grenades from a launcher if the green smoke and bad-smell in the air was anything to go by, Mei huddled in the back and hung on for dear life as she handed out ammo from her Inventory.
"Look out! They're firing micro-missiles!" I shouted as beehive-like launchers were lobbed upward, tiny rocket-propelled darts zipping at us mid-flight. I was fast-enough at this point thanks to a bit of power leveling that I was about as fast as a high-end civilian motorcycle, but Stendhal… That crazy SOB was cutting them out of the air with his beam sword like a freaking Jedi Knight.
Only reinforced how-terrifying technique could make you even in the virtual world.
For the next several minutes, everyone on "Chronos Squadron" unloaded grenades and AP ammo into the barn-sized flank of the field boss. Whenever someone's HP dipped into the red, they would hide back in the terrain while Stendhal and I drew aggro with our beam swords, ripping deep furrows into the metal before we ran like all hell. At one point, Bullet Punch even managed to force his way inside so he could beat up the crew. He'd only survived the Normandy-like approach because of his stupid-high END and full-body armored plating he'd equipped special for the occasion.
When the Boss' HP reached the one-third mark, the tempo of the battle changed.
Cue SAO Alternative: Gun Gale Online OST - [Disc 1] 24 イエス・マム!
"Hey guys! I'm getting some major infared readings off that thing!" Hatsume called out from behind a scope.
"Yeah, no shit!" I bit out as thick plumes of steam began issuing between mechanical components like something from Attack on Titan.
"What's happening!?" 5ilencer called out as segments began to separate and re-orient themselves, Bullet Punch scrambling out of one of the seams before he got crushed by the horizontal mass turning itself vertical.
"DAAAMN YOU, MICHAEL BAAAY!" I swore as the thing steadily gained humanoid form like a freaking Deceptacon!
"Oh, so it's one of those transforming bosses…" Dust_2_Dust hummed like this was no big deal.
With how-much longer he'd been playing VRs compared to me, it might've been...!
"And this shit happened IRL?!" Sefgas asked incredulously as baleful red optics stared down hatefully at us.
"RETREEEAT!" Hatsume cried as the thing fired a massive volley of micro-missiles at us, carpet-bombing the field and nearly Party Wipe-ing us in full.
"OKAY! I'M JUST GOING TO COME OUT AND SAY IT! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?" 5ilencer demanded as we huddled behind a dune and a few boulders, the Field Boss slowly advancing toward us.
"WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?!" Hatsume cried out.
"PARTY CHAT DOESN'T TUNE OUT SFX!" Sefgas replied.
"OH! GOT IT!"
"SO WHAT NOW, FEARLESS LEADER?" Stendhal inquired.
"DUST! YOU GOT ANY SUPER-STRONG CABLE IN YOUR INVENTORY!?"
"WHY DO YOU ASK?!"
"I HAVE AN IDEA!"
*AHA*
Cue SAO Alternative: Gun Gale Online OST - (Disc 1) 14 突撃
"I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M DOING THIIIIIIS!" I swore as I ran into the field with the end of a braided CNT cable in my hands; despite the fact that it was my own idea.
"KEEP IT UP, WILD TIGER!" Bullet Punch shouted, virtual muscles flexing as he chucked a harpoon like a god-damned javelin.
The tormented screech of metal sounding as the harpoon hit a weak spot with quote/unquote "superhuman" force, as I began to run circles around the thing, everyone fired everything they had at whatever they could hit. The sounds of bullets, grenades, bombs, and missiles around me making it sound like I'd just walked onto the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, as I ran like hell to dodge friendly fire, micro missiles, lasers, and the occasional fist, a thought occurred to me.
Did I steal this idea from the original Star Wars trilogy?
Another thought that thusly occurred...
So what if I did; big whoop, you wanna fight about it?
"GWAGH!" I yelped as the cable drew taught and my feet flew out from under me, the groaning of metal sounding as the thing struggled to take a step.
"Okay, its ankles are bound! What now?!" 5ilencer questioned over comms.
Cue Red vs Blue OST – Warthog Music
The next moment, a nostalgically-familiar Tejano (Spanis-Texan) folk music crested the hill off in the distance, growing louder by the second.
"What the fuck…?!" I asked as Dust_2_Dust's vehicle of choice with stereo blaring jumped the nearby hill on nitros, Bullet Punch on the hood and grinning like a complete and utter loon.
"LIFE FINDS A WAYYYYYY!" the potential nutjob cackled as he leapt from the vehicle after its zenith, the unholy lovechild of a multiple-stage rocket and a pile bunker on his arm as he sailed toward the giant transformed mecha's face.
At the same time Dust_2_Dust's car completed its nosedive and kicked up a massive plume of dust, Bullet Punch delivered a real bunker buster of a blow, the thing actually tipping over, the cable around its ankles stopping it from orienting itself. The punch-happy nutjob cackling like a complete headcase as he rode the giant robot on the way down, his rocket-powered pile bunker took big chunks out of its HP Bar with each piston blow until it struck the ground with a deafening *THOOOOOM!*, the scream of twisted metal sounding through the air as a sharp rock miraculously skewered it on impact.
What a coincidence that something like that happened to be there on the way down.
"THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIIIIFE!" Bullet Punch cackled like a loon before the thing on his forearm exploded with a loud- *BOOOOM!* -, sending him soaring through the air.
"Heh heh heh. Work in progress," Hatsume giggled over the comm.
"The human mind is truly a terrifying thing," Stendhal said readying his beam saber, leading the charge as the thing attempted to get back up.
No but seriously! How did some yahoo in the Midwest build themselves a freaking Deceptacon!
-thought I to myself as I went postal on the thing with my pint-sized legally-distinct beam sword.
*AHA*
"Well, that went… surprisingly well…" I hummed as we eyed our loot and traded on the way back to the SBC Glocken. Most of it was Crafting Materials which the others gave to me, but there were a few choice Weapons sprinkled in there as well, lots of ammo, and plenty of Credits.
"Hey uh… You sure you don't want an aid kit?" Sefgas asked looking up from his Menu.
"Nah, I'm good," Bullet Punch shrugged, the cross-section of his blown-off arm red and pixelated with a white wireframe underneath.
"Looks like you've got a bit of an 'invention gremlin' on your side, eh, Wild Tiger?" Dust_2_Dust asked.
"Maybe, but I don't trust her craftsmanship."
"Hey, even if something you make explodes, it wasn't a waste of time!" Hatsume replied with a manic grin.
"Unless you're NASA," 5ilencer hummed. "Then it's a waste of time, and money."
"Yeah, but when was the last time they actually launched anything?" I quipped.
No, but in all seriousness, is NASA even a thing anymore…?
"Well, as much fun as this was, I need to get going," Stendhal stated, Party Trade-ing the bulk of his Drops into my Inventory as well as his Capture Data for this session before his body slumped over.
"What do you think he gets up to when we aren't around?" Sefgas asked nudging the blade-user with his foot.
"Not any of our business," I returned.
The whole point of the virtual world was to escape reality. If you wanted to talk about the IRL, you might as well use an ordinary chatroom.
"Well, as much of a bitch as it was getting everyone together at the same time, this was a lot of fun," 5ilencer hummed.
"It helps challenging the boss without a bunch of shitty five-year-olds screaming in your ear," Dust_2_Dust nodded, scratching furiously at his neck to the point that red pixelated flakes leapt into the air.
Maybe the guy had really bad eczema IRL?
"All things considered, I think I've had my fill of [Based on a True Story] quests for a good while…" I shrugged. "Seriously, did someone build a Deceptacon, or did one just fall out of a Rift somewhere?"
"What-a-con?" Dust_2_Dust blinked.
"Villain robot from a really old IP."
Were they still making Transformers series and toys this late into the 22XXs?
"Huh… Neat," the possible man-child hummed, the planetside encampment for the SBC Glocken visible in the distance.
*AHA*
AN:
Other than allowing me to make a Sword Art Alternative: Gun Gale Online crossover, the reason Spaceman and I included VRMMOs into this variant of the MHAverse is because, of course there'd be a robust market in what we estimate to be the 23rd century (given "eight generations" for Heroes tend to be really fucking short…).
I mean sure, they have literal mechs that could go toe to toe with some of the lower-end Mass Produced Gundam, and I-Island has some really amazing DCAU-esque tech, but the reason we nerfed the VR Headsets so heavily was because we wanted the "Tech Stagnation" to be evident somewhere, even where it was more-advanced than our own.
As for why he/I mentally address the Mon Squad, Hitomi, Mitsumi, and Mei by their names while the others are by their UserNames, it's because he/I don't/doesn't know their IRL names; which is kind of the point in a VRMMO.
Anywho, looking forward to hearing from you all later, and I'll see you next time!