Mashirao stepped off the train with his tail anxiously swaying behind him.
Today there was Pre-Quirk gaming con and he had really wanted to go to it but neither of his parents would be able to get the day off work to take him.
But he had been saving up his money for the con since well over last year and had been hoping to go for way longer than that, so Mashirao had done something... kind of, maybe, actually really stupid of him.
He'd asked his gaming friends, CC and Green if they could go with him to the con, both of them had agreed and then he'd lied to his parents about going with his friends and their parents to the con.
They had believed him because he just didn't lie to them and now here he was, a couple of blocks away from the building that the organizers rented out for the three-day con dressed in a costume similar to his game character so his friends could find him.
They'd agreed to meet at the entrance of the Kasadera Kannon, it was out of the way of the con but easy enough to find and Green said it would be better to meet up beforehand since finding each other at the con would be near impossible.
Mashirao had felt very confident about his plans the night before, they had an agreed upon place to meet, all sent each other short descriptions of what they be wearing so they could know what to look for, and he had known both of them for nearly two years now so what did he have to worry about.
Honestly what he had done hadn't quite hit him until woke up this morning.
As nice as his friends were, he'd never met them in person before and completely lied about who he was meeting with, in a whole other prefecture he's never been to before outside of tournaments.
There were quite a few ways this could go horribly wrong for him.
Which he was trying not to focus on to keep his anxiety from rising from any more than it already was, the stares he was getting wasn't helping but he supposed being dressed in the makeshift monk's gear outside of temple was something that would stick out.
Mashirao curled his tail around himself and tried his best to ease his nerves by reminding himself he was here early and that he shouldn't expect either of them to arrive soon, and mentally recalled what the two should look like.
Green said he had a strong lizard mutation, pink hair and would be wearing a panda hoodie so he'd stand out very clearly on his own.
CC had a hand-quirk and would be wearing what he called his 'reference' hoodie and shoes, said they'd know him when they saw him and begrudgingly said he had blue hair when Green pressed.
Mashirao had yet to see someone that matched either of those descriptions yet, and Mashirao had to remind himself for a second time that he was early and he wasn't likely to see either of them for another five minutes.
Mashirao was very tempted to grab for his phone to double check the time or even mess around on one of the games just to distract himself but he didn't want to miss seeing either of his friends when they arrived and so took to running his hand along his tail instead.
Only to not realize how fast time went by from how much over thinking he was doing and nearly jump when he heard a familiar voice call out "Miles?"
Mashirao whipped his head around and saw a man covered in green scales and had pink hair, the front half in braids like- "Green?" Mashirao replied surprised by how much he looked like his in-game counterpart.
Well for the most part, the lizard-folk were aquatic and Green clearly wasn't from the lack of fins.
Green smiled and settled next to him though not too closely that Mashirao would feel uncomfortable "Yeah. Your costume looks pretty good, where'd you get the fur for the collar?" Green inquired pointing a clawed hand to the fluff.
Mashirao became a bit flustered and patted the collar "My mom's into making doll customs and she uses yarn to make fluff so I thought it would work for my costume too." he explained, and it worked better than he expected, even if he had to make a few layers of it for the right amount of fluff.
"I'll have to remember that for Halloween, Kaori wants to go as a poodle this year." Green commented.
The two of them fell into a somewhat awkward silence with neither of them knowing quite what to say apparently.
Mashirao quickly realized it was one thing to talk to someone online and a whole other thing to talk with them in person, when they were playing they could focus on the game to talk about and without it there it was suddenly much harder to think about what to talk about.
"For fucks sake noobs, I've told you both to boost your perception, if I had my bow I would've shot you both for being oblivious NCPs already." the raspy jab was ridiculously familiar and Mashirao couldn't help a grin.
Only CC would repeatedly shoot his party members with paralysis arrows for not being more aware of their surroundings, it was how he and Green met CC in the first place, and the pessimistic and somewhat antagonistic Rouge had definitely grown on them to laugh something like that off.
Turning to the voice Mashirao's jaw dropped once he spotted a young man in a white hoodie.
Even from far away he spotted at least twenty characters from various games he's played before and had to resist the urge to run over and see just how many more he could recognize.
CC scoffed cocking his head with a smirk "Told you Kit, you wouldn't be able to keep your eyes off of me." CC boasted making a show of turning around and revealing even more things he recognized, and frankly they were all blended together in ways that made so much sense.
"It that embraided? Where'd you get this?" Green standing up and looking at the hoodie up close.
CC gave him a shit eating grin "Special loot drop from completing a quest." CC said preening under Green's inspection "Same for my shoes." CC added, bringing Mashirao's eyes down to CC's feet.
Oh, he wanted a pair of those shoes, did they come in different styles? Mashirao would love a pair of those shoes with Lucario on them.
"Right, well we should probably introduce ourselves before we head out to con, I'm Iguchi Shuichi." Green re-introduced himself.
"I'm Ojiro Mashirao." Mashirao chimed in getting up to his feet and finally moving to stand.
CC pursed his lips, which caused Mashirao to notice the scars on the man's face and it's wrinkles of dry skin, something that somewhat concerned Mashirao since he couldn't imagine what could've caused the scars on his face.
CC sighed "Just call me Chase." CC grumbled his hand coming up to scratch at his neck only to stop near immediately because Mashirao reached over to stop him from doing that.
"Sorry." Mashirao quickly apologized, putting his hands behind him.
Jumping a bit when he felt a hand in his hair and looked back up to see it was CC- Chase's hand in his hair.
"I got a hand quirk Kit, make sure I'm wearing gloves before you try any hero shit got it? Don't want our Monk to be turned to ashy-bloody mush." Chase told him making Mashirao's stomach flip at the idea forced to his mind.
"N-noted." Mashirao said after swallowing a lump in his throat.
"Good, now let's get to that big special event quest you wanted to do Monk, it's your personal quest so what's our quest goals Kit?" Chase asked wrapping his arm around Mashirao's shoulders.
"Oh, um, well I was hoping to get some posters I commissioned, some Pokémon figures too, and maybe some pins." Mashirao answered slightly nervous since he usually was more of a follower than a leader in their adventuring.
"So, retrieving your scrolls, capture some beasts, find some collectibles. Sounds good, got any money on you Monk or is me and Ranger going to have to pick some pockets?" Chase questioned slightly teasingly.
"CC." Iguchi admonished and Chase Scoffed.
"As if you didn't help me loot that village in the bad lands." Chase quipped as he started to walk over towards the convention.
"Because you decided to make a stupid bet with an NPC known for sending high level mobs after people who don't pay, and Miles wasn't at a high enough level to survive even with us covering him." Iguchi scolded as he followed the two of them.
The bickering caused most of the tension to fall away from Mashirao as both of his friends fell into their usual banter.
"I have money guys, we can get food afterwards too if you want, my treat for coming with me." Mashirao interrupted and Chase huffed.
"Bold of you to assume I'd be a cheap-sake Kit, in case you forgot I ain't poor and bought most of your gear and our Ranger's too." Chase told him with a grin.
"And yet you couldn't buy the jewel we needed to get out of debt with Cyfer, or Domnic, or Krystal." Iguchi commented rolling his eyes.
"If they wanted me to take them seriously then the programmers should've given them a serious name." Chase said with a scoff starting up another bickering match between the two.
Mashirao could only smile as all of the discomfort just fell away as the three of them continued on to the convention.
Hours later Mashirao could only stare as Chase continued to raise his bidders paddle, trying to outbid someone for a plushie he mentioned, Iguchi had taken him away from the bidding lot after Chase got up to ¥50k and considering that was enough for his head to spin Iguchi was probably right to do so.
"It's been five minutes, is he still bidding?" Mashirao said disbelievingly when Iguchi came back with a couple of meat kabobs and some fries.
Iguchi released an exasperated sigh "As someone who is more experienced with absurd people doing absurd things because they can, just roll with it Miles. He's trying to be nice." Iguchi told them.
"Most people don't spend over ¥50k to be nice." Mashirao said back.
And Iguchi snorted "Chase isn't most people, though I think he's trying to be like his tutor right now and that tutor tends to be a philanthropist of sorts." Iguchi replied fondly before eating his kebob.
"And that means spending possibly hundreds of thousands of yen on a Sawk plushie?" Mashirao questioned incredulously.
Iguchi gave him a kind understanding smile and gently patted Mashirao on the shoulder "If it means something to you, then that's all that matters for some people." Iguchi said, trying to assure him.
"Why does that not make me feel better about this?" Mashirao asked before chewing on his kebob.
"You'll get used to it." Iguchi told him with a chuff "... Eventually." Iguchi added after a moment.
Before Mashirao could say anything else though Chase returned both with the Sawk plushie and a couple other ones in his arms.
Including a Feraligatr and Lapras plush of equal size in his arms.
A shit eating grin predominantly on his face as he returned with his spoils.
"Another objective completed, along with a few bonus ones." Chase cockily told them as he passed the Sawk over to him and the Feraligatr over to Iguchi "Dye it orange and your sister can call it Nii-Chan." Chase said before settling on a chair and popping a fry in his mouth.
Iguchi chuffed again "Thanks CC, Kaori will love it, and put a bow on it too knowing her." Iguchi said playing with one of the limbs.
"Just need to grab a couple more scrolls and a snag a few more collectables and we'll have completed your special event quest Monk." Chase commented rubbing circles on the Lapras's head.
Looking at the pile of stuff he had on his check-list of things he wanted to get Chase was right, and the process was actually really fun, especially since the three of them just kept having fun playing around and Chase had been key to that.
Always having some game quote or would crack an in joke that he couldn't stop himself from smiling or laughing every single time.
And Iguchi was also there with him discussing pros and cons of some of the merch and geeking out over some of the mods and patches they bought at another booth.
"Oi Monk, not going AFK on us IRL are you?" Chase said waved a gloved hand in his face.
"No, just thinking." Mashirao told them.
"On what Miles?" Iguchi asked looking curious.
"New quest goal pop up Monk?" Chase questioned leaning forward.
"I… I'm just really glad that I asked you guys to come with me. This has been a lot of fun way more than I thought this would be with you guys here." Mashirao confessed.
Chase huffed "As if we'd let our Monk handle a mission like this on your own, we are a party after all." Chase responded as if it was an obvious fact.
Mashirao grinned back at the two "Yeah, a party." Mashirao said practically beaming.
Party name: Sky-ward-beasts
Comet-chaserXxX: Real name, Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko.
High level beta-tester dark-elf Rouge that specializes in Archery, has been playing the MMO since he was ten and was playing solo before now, he's since made a habit of doxing people for saying slurs at his party members.
Chaotic-neutral.
Greenzilla1890: Real name, Iguchi Shuichi.
Decent level Lizard-Folk Ranger with a habit of taming large dangerous animals and hacking the game to tame them sometimes, been playing since he started technical school, hacks the game for their party's better aesthetics.
Lawful-neutral.
Milez-artjuzo: Real name, Ojiro Mashirao.
Low level Fire-Fox Monk from the shadow sect but was kicked out due to his alignments, gifted with shadow magic but still a new-ish player and was 'adopted' in game by Iguchi, has commissioned a set of posters of their game characters together.
Tempered-Good.
And I will make and post a one-shot of these guys messing around in game after they met later on.