Chapter 5
Move or Die: A fun multiplayer game, much in the style of Mario Party. Compete in various minigames and the first to reach a certain amount of points wins! But there's a twist: You must constantly keep moving or risk death.
"Greetings my miraculous viewers!" Marinette gleefully began, firing up yet another livestream for her viewers to watch. "Today, we have a very special stream for you all. Today, I'm joined by a very special guest! Care to introduce yourself?"
"Hello there everyone." another voice spoke, this one belonging to a male whom Marinette was acquainted with. "My name's uhh… Chat Blanc."
She blinked a couple of times, staring at her screen with a blank expression on her face. "Excuse me for a second everyone."
She pushed a button on her keyboard, which muted her microphone for the audience, but not for the person that was in the call with her. "Seriously? Chat Blanc? That was the best you could come up with?"
"What's wrong with Chat Blanc?"
"What's wrong? What's wrong?! I thought you said-… But you wanted to… Oh never mind."
She sighed. She wanted to try introductions again, but this time with a different name for her associate but it was too late. The name had already been established and others had heard it so it was too late to go back now.
As part of helping Chat Noir grow as a livestreamer, Marinette came up with the idea that he join some of her livestreams from time-to-time, where she could teach him some tools of the trade, without worry of disappointing and losing viewers. She came up with the idea too that he come up with a new alias for when he's on her stream so that he won't accidentally attract any unwanted attention. Unfortunately for her, that idea fell flat thanks to Chat's lack of imagination.
"So, Chat… Blanc and I will be streaming this adorable game for you all today! It's called Move or Die! It's a lot like Mario Party, except there's a twist! You have to keep moving, or else, you die!"
"I was just dying to play this with you Ladybug!" Chat jested. Marinette pinched the area between her eyes and groaned. "Chat, what did I tell you about puns on my stream?"
"That they'll be the death of you?"
Her chat started to flood with responses to the puns, most of them encouraging the man and some were even continuing the stream of puns for him. Meanwhile, Marinette shook her head and continued to groan at these puns. She took a deep breath in and said to her stream, "You know everyone, I don't HAVE to stream with him. I can kick him out of the call anytime I wish and play something else for you all."
"No! No! I'll be good!" Chat protested. The sudden urgence in his voice was enough to make Marinette giggle. "Good kitty. Let's play, shall we?"
The scene on her livestream changed to the game that she had introduced earlier, Move or Die. She was in the lobby of the game, waiting for her partner to join up with her. It didn't take too long for him to appear in the lobby once she invited him, both physically in game and verbally too.
"So, which character are you-" Before Marinette could finish, the image of a grey fluffy cat with stubby legs appeared on screen, with the word "READY" appearing underneath of it. Marinette blinked a couple more times, taken off guard that he chose his character so quickly. "Well… alright then!"
"Ever since I unlocked this little furball, I haven't played any other character since!" Chat commented as he chuckled. "I just love him too much. Plus, you gotta admit, he's the absolute most purr-"
Adrien stopped mid-sentence. Even though he couldn't see Ladybug, he could sense that she was glaring at him, which she was. She had her mouse hovered over the red "End Call" button on Skype, just waiting for him to finish.
"Most… suiting character for me! Yeah, that's what I meant to say, suiting. Don't you agree LB?"
Marinette smiled, happy that he didn't continue the pun and that she didn't need to cease communication with him too. She hovered her mouse away from the end call button and turned her attention back to the game. "Yep!"
She began scrolling through the game's characters, trying to find one that she felt like playing as for the time being. She hadn't unlocked many of the game's characters, but she had enough to provide her with a decent selection. She scrolled past the skeleton character, the hamburger, the ghost, and the jack-o-lantern characters. She was tempted by the cupcake character, but finally settled on the one that looked like a piece of toast, with a small slice of butter on top of its head.
As soon as she readied up, the two were taken to a new screen where icons with words floated all around the screen. At the top, it said "Chat, vote what games Ladybug should play."
"Whoa, this is new!" Chat commented, his eyes wide with surprise with seeing this screen. Marinette giggled at Chat's surprise. "Yep! They added in a feature to allow Twitch viewers to decide on various things like what game modes we should play. Hope you don't mind!"
"Not at all. Just took me by surprise is all."
"Well that makes even then, kitty."
The two waited for a grand total of thirty seconds, where after this time, some of the icons began to fade away, leaving only five left which were the most popular game modes that were selected by Ladybug's viewers.
The game immediately transitioned them into the first minigame that they were to play; Bomb Tag. Both Marinette and Chat groaned in frustration once they saw this. Once they heard each other's groans, they perked up a bit with surprise.
"You hate Bomb Tag too Ladybug?"
"Yeah, it's not my favourite. The netcode of this game isn't well adjusted for this mode." She sighed. "For those that don't know, this minigame is exactly as it sounds. One person has a bomb and has to chase others around. If they touch someone then the bomb gets passed to them."
"Yeah, but thanks to lag, it makes this minigame more frustrating than it should be." Chat continued on for her. Marinette nodded at her screen and sighed once again. "Oh well. Best of luck to you Chat."
"And to you my lady."
"Ready?" the announcer called out from the game, with the words "Move! Or! Die!" appearing in the center as a countdown. The two began running around the map, as per the game's main instruction. A little belt came out from the ceiling and plastered itself on Chat's cat character.
"Haha! You got the bomb first!" Marinette taunted, having her character start distancing itself away from Chat.
"I may be first, but I won't be the one to have it last!" he called out, as he began his pursuit after her. He chased her a short ways across the map but as soon as she jumped onto one of the platforms above them, he ambushed her and transferred the bomb over to her. The shock from this caused her to squeal, and provide Chat an opportunity to escape.
He jumped to the top right corner of the map, using an invisible platform to help him to his destination. Unfortunately for Marinette, she didn't see the platforms when Chat used them and tried jumping up to the corner her own way.
"Ha ha! Can't reach me!" Chat taunted, as he began jumping up and down repeatedly. The bomb across Marinette's character began ticking even faster, which sent her into a frustrated panic. She kept trying to get up into the corner but kept failing.
"Come on, come on!" she said, running away from where she was and finding an alternative route. She managed to find the invisible blocks that Chat used and raced alongside them, but unfortunately, before she could reach him, a large "POP" was heard on the screen.
"Darnit!" Marinette slumped back in her seat, thinking she had lost the first round, but to her surprise, the game zoomed onto her character, who looked anything but blown up. When the results screen came up, where it showed both players and the score, her character descended from the top of the screen and she received 2 points.
"What!" Chat cried out, feeling astonished by this result. Marinette looked to her chat and began smirking when she saw what her viewers said what happened. "Hey, Chat. You weren't moving."
"I was though!"
"Jumping doesn't count; you have to move back and forth."
There was silence from the other end. For a moment, she thought that he left the call in frustration, but she was proven wrong when she heard a loud screaming noise come from his end. She giggled, enjoying seeing her associate in distress like this. "Don't worry Chat, there's still a lot more games! First to twenty points wins don't forget!"
"Oh, right. What have we got now?"
Marinette turned her attention back to the game and saw that they were already on the instruction screen for the next game. She shook her head, realizing what it was. "It's Twitch Qwerty Bombs."
"What?"
"It's another new feature for the Twitch integration. Basically, we're in front of a keyboard and the viewers will type letters into the chat. Eventually, the letters on the keyboard will explode and kill us if we're near so we have to avoid them."
"Oh, gotcha!"
The two of them started up the game. They immediately started running around the arena once again. Marinette stuck to the right side of the screen whereas Chat kept to his left. The two waited as Marinette's chatroom became flooded with singular letters. The keys on the keyboard began glowing, corresponding to the chat's selections. Marinette frowned when she saw what the majority of the letters were that were glowing. Y, U, H, J, N, M were among the most popular letters, while A and S occasionally flashed.
A reticle finally appeared on the H and J keys, causing Marinette to jump down from her position to the lower level of the screen. The screen shook when the two keys exploded, causing difficulty for the two players to see. When it stabilized, Marinette saw that a new reticle appeared on the M key, which was unfortunately where she was standing.
The M exploded, causing Marinette's character to explode along with it. The game zoomed into Chat's cat, declaring him the winner. Chat cheered as his cat descended from the top of the screen and received two points. Marinette, on the other hand, groaned and slumped down in her seat, rolling her eyes as she did.
"Everything alright Ladybug?" Marinette looked at her screen and sighed. "Yeah, I'm fine Chat. Just that what I expected to happen, happened."
"Which was…?"
"You ever hear the term 'Kill the streamer?'"
"Here and there."
"It's something you'll have to deal with when you stream on your own. Viewers will kill the streamer any chance they get and will purposely go out of their way to do so sometimes. They get a kick out of it when in most cases, it just annoys the streamer and makes them rage, which is what they go for too."
"That's rude of them! I wouldn't dare dream of doing that to any other else, especially you Ladybug."
"Yeah, but there's not much I can do about it." She sighed once again. "I'm used to it and you'll get used to it too. Let's continue on with the next game, shall we?"
The next game that they were to play was one that they were quite familiar with; Falling Blocks. The objective of this minigame was to survive as blocks drop from above. If they touch a player, they die. The last one standing wins.
The game started up immediately. Chat immediately retreated his character to the middle level of the three tiered map while Marinette stuck with the top. A few blocks started dropping from above, but the two were able to evade them without much trouble.
As time went on, the amount of blocks falling increased as well as their speed. When Marinette sensed Chat was starting to struggle, she raced down to middle tier and over to Chat, pushing his character. This took him by surprise, as he didn't expect that she'd do something like that. He fought against her pushing and tried to push her back.
The two were locked in combat, both of them trying to push the other back and sabotage them. They were heated up, never giving up with their struggle.
A block started falling from above, that was in the dead center of their battle. Chat saw this as an opportunity he could take advantage of.
As soon as it was close to their heads, he moved his character the opposite direction from before, which made Marinette push forward just enough so that she was directly under the block. She let out a squeal where she heard her character get squished by this block, and had to watch as the game gave Chat two points for winning the round.
"Oh well, that was a good game Chat!"
"Hey, Ladybug, mute your stream for a second please?" he asked. She was confused, but complied to the request. "Okay, it's just you and me, what's up?"
"Why did you do that?" Her eyebrows raised in confusion, not understanding the meaning behind his question. She asked him to elaborate, which he did. "You would've been safe if you had stayed up top or taken to your other side. You probably could have won too. I was starting to struggle."
"Oh, that." She waved her hand about, dismissing the question as if it was nothing. However, she remembered that Chat couldn't see and decided to explain herself instead, seeing as this was another opportunity where she could teach Chat something. "You see Chat, when you play on camera, you have to make things entertaining for your viewers. You can't play how you would normally play if you were on your own. With a lot of viewers, you have to keep their interest and that means doing some risky and stupid things, like just now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I consider it a win if it keeps their attention."
She was met with more silence on Chat's end. The reason this time was because once again, he was impressed by her knowledge of streaming and admired her. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. Instead, he absorbed her words and lost himself in his thoughts.
"Chat?" The mention of his name snapped him back into reality. "Ready for more?"
"You bet Ladybug!"
It was a long and hard fought battle, but with a score of 20 to 14, Ladybug came out as the ultimate winner of the first full length game of Move or Die with Chat. The chat was filled with congratulations to the streamer, while Chat offered his praise to her too. She thanked the both of them and took a bow, that none could see but she did it anyways because it made her feel even more proud of her accomplishment.
"Hey Ladybug, can we take five please?"
"Sure Chat."
As Chat left his station, she put on some music for her stream and switched the visual to a picture of an adorable Ladybug saying "Taking a break! Be right back!"
She spent the time for the break checking her cellphone. As it turns out, she missed a text from her best friend Alya that was sent during their game. She read the text and began blushing from what she said.
"So, you and Chat Noir are finally together, huh? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"
She immediately texted back a response saying "NO! NOT LIKE THAT!"
The thought of her and Chat together, the way that Alya was implying, made her flustered. She had to admit that when she first met him she was attracted to him but since then, her feelings towards him have been wavering and she didn't know what to feel about him. She didn't want to think about that either, she was content in keeping her focus on gaming and teaching him her ways.
She received a response back from her friend, this time saying, "You can try and deny it as much as you like, but I've been watching the stream. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) You two are cute together!"
She knew where this was going. She sent one last reply saying, "I'm just teaching him how to be a good streamer. That's it." and tossed away her phone, not looking forward to her friend's next response.
"I have returned my lady." her partner said, capturing her attention. "Up for some more?"
She shook the thoughts from her head and said "Yeah! I'm up for a couple more games!"