Chapter time!
To say Weiss Schnee had been hooked on video games would have been an understatement.
She was absolutely in love with them!
Video games weren't like anything else she had ever experienced in her admittedly still relatively short life.
"Miss Schnee."
They weren't dry and boring like any books or theatre plays she had been forced to experience by her father to cultivate her so-called cultural awareness, whatever that meant.
She wasn't forced to partake in them against her will, like she was for literally any other activity in her life.
On top of that, they were also so much fun!
"Miss Schnee."
The combination of the imaginative visuals, beautiful music, and entertaining storyline, she encountered in the single game she had the chance to fully play for now, made them so much more captivating than anything else she had ever seen.
It was the first time she had been actually intrigued by a plot of something!
All the poems and dry history books she could find in her library, couldn't hold the candle to the engaging story of the Last Kingdom, the Nomads, and the Grimm Ones, she experienced playing the Sci-War.
How could such things even compare?
None of the other medium of telling stories, she had the opportunity to experience, were interactive, after all.
"Miss Schnee!"
The interactivity of the games, something she later learned was often called gameplay, was the primary driving factor behind her newfound love for the medium, in the first place.
There was just no such feeling as introducing all the plans, strategies, and ideas in her head, into the virtual world of the game.
It was something that just couldn't be compared to anything else.
She had no idea why was her older sister so adamant on becoming a huntress, or Atlas Specialist, in the future. However, if the feelings her sister got from killing grimm were even only half as potent as the ones she got from trying video games, then it certainly was a fulfilling career path.
The emotions she had for video games were so intense that even now, right in the middle of her piano lessons, she couldn't stop thinking about them.
"Weiss!" The annoyed voice of her piano teacher startled her from her mind haze, stopping the song she was absent-mindedly playing.
"Y-Yes?" She asked, somewhat groggily, while turning her head towards the very visibly angry teacher, before straightening herself a little to look more presentable. "Is there any issue with my current performance, Miss Noten?"
Miss Noten, her piano teacher, looked at her for a few seconds, and sighed.
"While I have to admit that the song you've just played is rather melodious, and would probably fit in the time period of the requested song, it still wasn't the song I asked you to play." Miss Noten said with a frown on her face.
Weiss's fingers left the keys of her piano.
Was she really playing the wrong song?
She blinked a couple of times in confusion at her teacher, trying to clearly remember what had she just played.
It was clearly a sublime tune, telling the story of a proud general fighting against impossible odds, exactly like the military ode she was asked to play. Yet, despite all similarities, it supposedly wasn't the correct song.
A quiet hum escaped her, as she tried to remember the more exact aspects of the song, before a sudden realisation struck her, making her widen her eyes in surprise.
It wasn't the classical Atlesian song, she just played.
It was the soundtrack of Sci-War!
The music that played during the eleventh mission in the Last Kingdom's campaign, to be exact.
"I-I apologise for choosing the wrong melody, Miss Noten." She coughed shyly into her hand, in embarrassment. "The song I played was simply stuck in my mind for a while, and I didn't notice that I played it."
Miss Noten looked at her with a disapproving frown.
"I won't make the same mistake again." She said with a pleading look in her eyes. "I promise!"
A tired sigh left her teacher.
"Alright, I will trust you, for now." Miss Noten said, before gesturing for her to go back to the piano. "Let's get back to practice, shall we? Please, play the Fourth Paean of the Forgotten Soldier by Amalbert Hymne."
She nodded her head curtly.
It was a going to be long melody, but, thankfully, it was something she was easily capable of playing without paying too much attention to it. There was no way, she was going to screw something up, again.
With a quick movement, she stretched her fingers a little, before leaning forward toward the piano, and starting to perform the song.
As her fingers gracefully moved from one key to another, the classical music piece of her home kingdom echoed loudly through the mansion. Her mouth, however, was eagerly humming completely different melody.
Despite all the attention she devoted to the lesson, in her mind she couldn't wait for it to be over, so that she could get back to playing her video game.
(...)
It was the first time in her life, that Weiss Schnee had felt her lessons dragged for far too long.
Every single lesson, that she usually wouldn't have mind sitting through fully, felt like an absolute eternity in the young Schnee's mind, when she finally found something to do after those lessons were over.
How could anyone expect her to tire herself so much throughout the day when she could be doing such entertaining things, like playing video games, instead?
The worst thing was the fact that her lessons always ended late in the evening, just about an hour before she was usually supposed to go to sleep.
Normally, it would have meant that she would have to abandon her new love for the video games if she wanted to have a decent sleeping schedule. However, she was willing to sacrifice a bit of cognisance from the next day, if it meant being able to have some entertainment in the late evenings.
After all, it wasn't like she was doing anything substantial during the day, anyway.
What was the point of being fully rested and aware for the whole day, if the only things she was going to be wasting that energy on were lessons with complete strangers?
Those people were here solely to share their knowledge with her and get their pay, it wasn't like they were anyone important to her.
Some barely noticeable tears appeared in her eyes, as she moved to sit in front of the computer she recently smuggled to her room.
All the people who were important to her were always too busy or didn't care about her, anyway.
She rapidly shook her head.
No, she couldn't sour her mood, right now. She couldn't do it to herself, especially not after struggling through the entire day of lesson, just to have only a few hours of playing her video games!
With a determined nod, she confidently turned her computer on.
It was a bit of a pity her father had fired the deer faunus who showed her the beauty of video games when it was revealed she spent most of her day in his quarters, but getting to play video games in her room worked just as well.
A smile appeared on her face as she moved her mouse cursor towards the icon of the Sci-War.
For now, it was the only game installed on her computer, but she was already planning to test a couple different ones, the moment she would get a chance to do that.
It, however, didn't mean she went through everything she could with the Sci-War, already.
With the excitement in her belly building up at the prospect of playing her game, she quickly clicked on the Sci-War icon twice, booting up the game.
She might have finished all the story campaigns, the last time she had the chance to play in her room, but there was still one mode she didn't try, and really wanted to test.
There was still the multiplayer to go through!
The main menu of Sci-War, beyond the usual options to change the settings and quit, had both campaign and multiplayer options, right in the middle. Unlike most of the other contemporary games, however, it was the multiplayer that was emphasised the most.
Sci-War was already quite an older game, one which developers knew couldn't stand on its three campaigns alone, that's why nearly all the updates and attention were focused on improving the multiplayer.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say, that the single-player options of this game were only a prologue to the real core of the experience, which was the multiplayer.
That was one of the main reasons why she was so excited to finally try it, after going through all the campaigns.
With a smile on her face, Weiss clicked on the multiplayer button.
However, differently from what she expected, the game didn't took her directly to an online lobby, or match settings. Instead, it opened up another, smaller, window with a place to write her nickname in.
She hummed in thought.
Obviously, it was a necessity for each player to choose their name for the online play, players' wins and losses needed to be tracked somehow, but it also gave her quite a conundrum to solve.
What was she supposed to call herself?
Her first thought was to simply use her real name, but she quickly shot down that idea. It didn't take a genius to figure out just why exactly using her real name in an online game was a terrible idea. Not only was she still trying to hide her new gaming passion from her father, but it could also lead to quite a few other problems, if the people she played against knew they were competing with a Schnee.
A shiver went down her spine at the mere thought of that happening.
She could already see all the hacking and extortion attempts directed at her family, if that knowledge went public.
No, her nickname had to be something that wouldn't give her name in an instant.
At the same time, she really wanted her online name to be something she resonated with. It would be the name she was going to be known as, by a lot of her fellow game enthusiasts, after all.
The problem with that, however, was that it was next to impossible to find something resonating with her in the first place.
There wasn't anything interesting about her, aside from her family name, at all. Her only hobby was playing video games, and she never had the chance to experience truly memorable things, either.
Like it or not, her nickname would have to incorporate the fact she was a Schnee.
There simply wasn't anything more going on about her, yet.
She groaned a little as she looked at the screen before her in hopes of finding any ideas about her name there.
It took a while, but after a few moments of intense thinking, and remembering just how exactly she came across her gaming passion, a single concept formed in her mind.
Her fingers quickly moved to the keyboard keys, pressing each button with the letter that would be in her name as if her life depended on it, and as her chosen nickname finally formed in the small opened window, she confidently pressed enter.
{That name is already taken.}
"Of course, it is." She mumbled a little in annoyance, as she added a small change to her name, before pressing enter, again.
{Welcome to the online Sci-War battle arena, SnowReh01.}
Good, apparently there weren't enough people with the same idea as her to make that slightly changed name unavailable, as well.
A wide grin appeared on her face, as she stretched her fingers, and prepared to play.
The options Sci-War was giving her, were Casual, Competitive, and Custom. Being a proud Schnee, and a natural-born winner as a result, she obviously moved her cursor directly over the Competitive option.
The moment she tried to click on it, however, she found it unavailable and completely greyed out.
{A player needs to complete at least five Casual games before getting access to the Competitive mode.}
A quiet grumble left her mouth, in dissatisfaction.
Why was this game, that she loved very much, being so difficult with her the moment she wanted to play the multiplayer?
Fine, whatever, she would simply fly through all the required casual games this evening, and begin her journey through the real game tomorrow. It wasn't like she was in any hurry to prove to others how good she was.
She moved her cursor over the Causal game-mode, and pressed it.
A small count-up timer appeared at the bottom of the screen, indicating the game was searching for opponents, and she began to wait for it to find anyone.
She waited.
Then, she waited some more.
A bit over a minute and a half had passed without the game finding her anyone to play against.
By the time another half a minute has passed, and the timer was proudly showing number two at its beginning, she was beginning to feel a little bit nervous.
There wasn't really any point of reference for multiplayer games to which she could reliably refer to, but for single player games she usually only had to wait a couple of seconds for her computer to load the map. Compared to that, the two minutes she had just sat through, waiting, felt quite long.
Sci-War was already quite an older game, at least when compared to all the recent releases.
Maybe there wasn't anyone left who played casual mode, anymore?
She glanced at the clock, showing a really late hour.
Was it because she started searching for opponents a little bit too late?
The timer hit the three-minute mark, and she began considering whether she should just give up on the multiplayer for now, and try to play some harder missions of the campaigns again, instead.
At least there, she would be certain she could play the game.
Before she could move her cursor to stop the timer, however, the screen smoothly turned black and changed into the loading screen.
It looked like the game finally found her opponent!
A smile of excitement appeared on her face.
She might have no idea who this Arch06Knight1 was, but it wasn't going to stop her from showing them just how good of a player she was!
The game finished loading in mere seconds, and another menu window with all three playable faction appeared over the greyed out map.
There was the Last Kingdom, the Nomads, and the Grimm to choose from, just like with the campaigns. Had this been a competitive game, she would have probably tried to choose a faction that would have worked best for the map.
However, since it was a casual game, she immediately chose her favourite one, instead, the Last Kingdom.
Her opponent chose the Nomads.
Arch06Knight1: Good lck, hf
She smirked at the small massage that appeared at the bottom of her screen.
SnowReh01: You'll be the one who will need luck to defeat me.
SnowReh01: I only need my skill.
A feeling of confidence rose within her as she sent her response. There was no way, she was going to lose to someone who couldn't even write their messages properly, it was simply impossible.
Arch06Knight1:Aight then
The game started.
Playing as the Last Kingdom, she began the match with her main base already placed, unlike the Nomads, who only had their mobile convoy at the beginning of the game.
It was, as always, placed near one of the bigger Dust deposit on the map, so that any player who chose to play as the Last Kingdom could consistently start their games by developing their economy.
Despite making her a stationary target, it was in actuality quite a decent boost for the early game.
The only other faction in the game whose early game could remotely compare to the Last Kingdom's were the Grimm, and even they didn't necessarily start with as good economy as the kingdom.
Knowing that she had to make use of her advantage as much as possible, she immediately sent all of her workers to mine the Dust, before spam clicking on her main base to create more workers.
Starting resources couldn't be used for much aside from the basic workers, anyway.
There was the possibility to create a couple of different weak units, such as scouts and basic militia, but her experience from campaign quickly taught her that those units were, more often than not, not worth their required resources.
With correct upgrades to her defensive building, she could turn any worker into a basic militia, later in the game, and, with all the Dust deposits visible through the fog of war, the scouts were useful for nothing else aside from locating the enemy.
Considering how slow the early game usually was in Sci-War, she could simply send her standard military units as scouts after a couple of minutes had passed.
She glanced at the upper right corner of her screen, where the population cap of her army was, to notice it glowing red.
It looked like, she hit the limit.
Having maxed out her army with workers, she instantly dragged her cursor over a couple of them, before ordering them to construct a couple of the more basic buildings.
Her current focus was on the research and defence buildings, but she did manage to gather enough resources for her first barracks of the game.
Although the barracks could only allow her to hire common light units, those units were still miles ahead of any basic militia or scout, she could have gotten from the main base earlier in the game.
The barracks were also one of the few methods to increase the population limit as the Last Kingdom in this game.
Sure, it was the most inefficient method there was, and her faction had at least two better ones, but it would still allow her to form some basic military, right now.
"Alright, let's try some quicker units." She whispered to herself quietly, before clicking on the unit recruitment icon. "I remember these types of units working quite well against the Nomads faction."
The whole gimmick of the Nomads was the fact their main base was a mobile convoy which, unlike any other faction, allowed them to efficiently disengage from any dire situation.
That strategy had one glaring issue, however.
The Nomad's convoy wasn't a particularly fast entity. In fact, out of all the possible to create units in the game, the convoy was only faster than two of them, and one of these units was a defensive Grimm structure.
Her opponent could still use that small mobility to hide their base in some next to impossible to find corner of the map, though.
Which was why, she was going to focus on the more mobile units available to the Last Kingdom for this game.
It was the perfect counter!
A small chuckle almost escaped her, but, luckily, she managed to stop herself before accidentally being heard by any of the servants working around the house at night.
Getting caught playing video games through the whole night was the last thing she wanted to happen. It wasn't hard to imagine her father placing an unconditional ban on video games for her.
The mere thought of that was painful to her.
She quickly shook her head to get rid of any lingering thoughts, before focus fully on the screen before her.
There was still a game for her to win, after all.
By now, the first couple of units, the light rangers, had managed to come out from her barracks. Although, they weren't the greatest when it came to DPS, or health, with their high movement speed, and an upgrade which allowed them to turn invisible later in the game, they were quite a reliable unit for hit-and-run tactics.
A wide grin appeared on her face.
They were also quite good at hunting rogue Nomads.
She quickly gave auto-explore orders to two of her five light ranger units, before assuming direct control of another two, and setting them a path through all the harder to find locations of the map.
No matter where the Arch06Knight1 was hiding with their Nomads, she was certain to find them.
With her confidence in finding her opponent's base unshaken, she swiftly moved to her idle workers to order them to construct more buildings.
If there was a single thing she learned about this game, it was the fact that stopping her production line in order to command her units would always lead to defeat against any of the more aggressive opponents.
It was true for the harder levels of the campaign, and she was sure, it was going to be true for playing against other human opponents.
As she focused on building more research points, defensive turrets, and population raising outposts, her light rangers had managed to easily explore about half of all the path she set for them.
At about that point, the red ping of her units getting attacked showed itself on her minimap.
She chuckled quietly to herself, before moving her camera over the ping's location.
The enemy has been spotted.
However, the moment she has gotten the closer look at her opponent's base, she couldn't help but raise her eyebrows a little in confusion.
Instead of the hidden convoy, she had very much expected to see, before her eyes, in a corner of the map away from any Dust deposits, stood a stationary version of the Nomads' mobile base.
It certainly wasn't what she was expecting from playing against the Nomads.
She was aware that one of the early upgrades allowed Nomads to turn their convoy into an unmoving base, but she most definitely didn't expect anyone to actually use that during a match against her.
After all, it did throw away the biggest advantage the Nomads had over all the other factions, and the only thing it granted them in return was a little bit of a health regeneration.
Well, it looked like it was going to be an easier game than she thought.
With her victory practically assured, by her incompetent opponent, she immediately changed her building queue, from one that focused more on the light mobile units into one that relied more on the heavier ones.
The Last Kingdom, as a faction, thrived when allowed to unleash all of its power on a stationary target, there was no way she would lose the game now.
A massive army of mechas, enhanced huntsmen, and heavy bullheads, slowly began amassing itself at the front of her base as she chuckled grimly to herself, having no doubts when it came to her victory.
First, the mechas of her kingdom were built in the heavy ordnance buildings she made prior to her change in strategy.
Then she constructed special academies, for recruiting the huntsmen to her army.
However, just before she could make the air docks for her heavy bullheads, she suddenly saw an immeasurable amount of red pings on her minimap indicating attacks on her base.
"What!?" She shouted in surprise, a bit louder than she would have liked.
Her base was being attacked!
Not only that, it was somehow being attacked by both her opponent's army and their mobile convoy!
How was it possible?!
She saw the stationary form of it earlier in the game with her scouts!
She was sure of it!
With panic in her eyes, she frantically commanded all her living units to attack the invading force.
There was no way her army would be able to do much when faced against the Nomad's one, who was fully supported by their mobile convoy. It was especially not possible, when her army hadn't been upgraded down a coherent and planned path, unlike her opponents.
Seeing that the situation in her base was already non-salvageable, she quietly gritted her teeth and moved her hand away from the mouse towards the keyboard.
She had to learn how her opponent had managed to do that!
SnowReh01:How!
It took a couple question for her question to be answered, but the moment it was, she felt angry enough to tear her hair out.
Arch06Knight1:Yuo used no scouts
What did it have to do with anything!?
SnowReh01:What?
This time it took even longer for her question to be answered, but at least this answer, unlike the previous one, made much more sense.
Arch06Knight1: the base upgrade for nomds takes a lot of time to fnish
Arch06Knight1: its alwys looks as if fuly complted howevr
Arch06Knight1: when i saw your rangrs coming fr me wiht my invisble scouts i simply strated the upgrde and waited fr you to leave
By the time her opponent sent their final message to her, she had already lost the game, and had to read all the messages from the loser's screen. At least, the game didn't force them to disconnect.
Upon doing so, however, she put her head in her arms, and groaned quietly to herself.
She couldn't believe she had fallen for such trickery!
Arch06Knight1: Amyway, GG
Arch06Knight1: It was fun
A quiet sigh escaped her, despite her embarrassing loss, she couldn't deny that she had a lot of fun playing against the Arch Knight.
She moved her fingers towards the keyboard.
SnowReh01: You're right.
SnowReh01: Want to do a rematch?
Once again, she found herself waiting for the response from her opponent.
Arch06Knight1: Its a bit late for me
Arch06Knight1: Got school tomrw
She winced a little as she read that and looked at the time.
Yeah, not everyone was as determined to play video games despite their everyday schedule as she was. Most people treated gaming as a usual hobby they partook in whenever they had the time.
SnowReh01: Oh.
Arch06Knight1: We can play tomorow tho
Arch06Knight1: Ill jsut add you as friend
Arch06Knight1: Thn we will be able to play anytime
Life appeared in her eyes as she read those messages.
Not only was the Arch06Knight1 willing to play with her again later, they were also offering to become her friend! It would be the first time she ever made a real friend, that wasn't introduced to her by her father as a way to spread their company's reach!
SnowReh1: Alrihgt, Let's do it!
As the screen slowly returned to the multiplayer lobby, and she received the friend invite, Weiss didn't even notice that the message she had just sent had incorrectly written word in it.
She was simply too elevated by having a friend to notice.
It was only a pity that they had to end for tonight, but it didn't bother her too much, considering they would be able to play again the next day.
There was no point in planning the next day of gaming when the current one wasn't over yet, however!
She leaned forward to her computer and queued herself up for another game.
Although she didn't notice it during any of her games, after saying goodnight to her new friend, throughout this entire night, a wide and excited grin has never left her face for even a single moment.
Her journey into gaming was truly getting exciting.
(...)
Jaune yawned as he turned off the computer.
Usually, he didn't like playing video games at such late hours, especially not during the school night. His mother always scolded him right after, saying that children his age should always prioritise sleep at night rather than doing whatever he was doing.
However, with there being only two computers for their entire family of nine people, he wasn't going to waste any chance at using one of them.
After all, it was incredibly difficult to have time for playing anything, when nearly all of his sisters wanted, or needed, to do something on the computer, as well, and their mother needed one free all the time for work, too.
At the least, thanks to that, every single time he had the chance to use a computer was rather memorable.
He certainly wasn't going to forget this evening's match, anytime soon.
With the Sci-War being a rather older game by now, therefore having a lot of its less-dedicated player base leaving for other games, already, it was becoming increasingly more difficult for him to find any opponent that was close to his skill level.
The fact he managed to find a person like SnowReh01 to play against was really a miracle for him.
Most of the players that were still playing the original Sci-War were either nearly unbeatable try-hards from the very top of the leaderboards, or some super casual gamers only bothering to play custom games with their friends.
That was why he was also so excited about having SnowReh01 as a listed in-game friend. Having someone who was so close to him in skill level, and being able to play against them anytime both of them were online, was truly an incredible boon for him.
Who knew, maybe if they continue to play against each other in the future, they might even become real friends outside the game, as well?
He winced as he caught the sight of a clock beside the computer.
Finding a new possible friend aside, it was a high time he finally went to sleep, because if he didn't do it soon, his mom might ban him from interacting with that friend for the foreseeable future.
In the end, it was his parents who had the final say on the time he could spend using the computer, after all.
And cut!
Little Weiss plays her first multiplayer game, makes her first friend, and learns the importance of scouts in real time strategy games.
Meanwhile, little Jaune is just happy he found someone to play his game with.
Also, the Sci-War is something like the original Starcraft if you want to picture it in your head. it has different factions, units, ect, but in principle it's just remnant's version of the old rts classic.
Anyway, that's it for now.
See ya!