Chapter time!
(By the way, short info for those who read my other story as well, there won't be a chapter for it this Friday. I will be visiting my distant family for a few days.)
If there was one thing Weiss knew about her family, it was that none of them actively enjoyed their routine family dinners.
Why would they?
Jacques, her father, didn't care for any of them, and view the whole ordeal as a big waste of time, he could have spent on improving their Dust Company and getting richer.
Her mother, Willow, despite not being as apathetic to her and her siblings as their father was, couldn't stand the family dinners, either. It was difficult for severe alcoholics to enjoy a normal meal without the access to their addiction, after all.
For her and her siblings, meanwhile, the family dinners usually meant making a detailed report on their progress in their studies.
Sufficed to say, no children would enjoy doing such things on a regular basis, and they certainly were no exception.
Lately, those family dinners were especially painful for her, too.
Every single one of those dinners meant that the free time she could have had for playing video games, or socialising with her newest online friend, was instead wasted on the tense interrogation by her father.
It was a nightmare!
The only reason she could survive those nightmarish dinners, at all, was the fact they usually happened only once a week. Sadly, it was only because her father couldn't waste more of his precious time on their family.
A pained chuckle almost escaped her, but she forcefully stopped herself.
She was a Schnee, and the Schnees always had the perfect etiquette while at the table.
There was no exception, or leeway, about that.
It didn't matter that she and her siblings were currently so stressed they could barely hold their utensils straight, or that none of them actively wanted to be here in the first place, the Schnees had to be perfect.
She closed her eyes for a second.
No, she couldn't think like that.
Despite them being quite probably the most stressful situations in her life, having the family dinners every week allowed her to technically have a free day to play video games for herself.
There were some caveats to that, of course, she would have to go against her parents' strict suggestions on how to spend that day for one, but they were more than manageable, in her opinion.
At the very least, they were, if dealing with them gave her a chance to play some Sci-War, today.
Her mouth curled up a little as she took a bite of her meal.
The five casual matches she had to go through, after a couple of annoying and close games, were now over, and she could finally give the competitive mode a shot.
It was difficult to describe how excited she was about that.
"You appear to be enjoying yourself quite a bit, Weiss." Winter, her reliable older sister, remarked in a manner reserved for social situations, with a gentle smile sent towards her. "Is today's food to your liking, sister?"
With a grace unseen on any other ten-year-old, Weiss swallowed the piece of food in her mouth.
At first, she wanted to deny her sister's question, and explain to her that she was simply excited about her next gaming session, but a quick look at her parents easily dissuaded her from doing that.
She didn't want to guess what sort of reaction her father would have to her newest passion.
"Yes, my dear sister." She said before moving her napkin to elegantly clean her mouth, just like the etiquette teachers instructed. "I must say, I find the food today to be quite supreme."
No, it didn't sound quite right.
Winter faked a cough in response, as if to remind her of something, confirming her suspicion that something was wrong.
A hum left her mouth as she slowly processed the words she had just said.
Despite knowing that something was wrong, it was surprisingly difficult for her to to place her mistake. It all sounded rather correct to what she remembered being taught on her lessons, from what she could tell.
Her father sighed in disappointment.
"Sublime. You were meant to say that you find the food quite sublime." Jacques put his silverware down, before slowly standing up. "I wanted to start the weekly report on your studying progress with your etiquette lessons, but it looks like you've just answered any question I might have yourself, already."
She turned her head down in shame.
If there was any aspect of being a father, Jacques was good at, it was making them feel like rubbish every time they didn't meet his expectations. Although, even that felt more like disappointing a superior at work rather than a father.
"I hope that's only because you've succeeded greatly in the other lessons, I've set up for you, Weiss." Jacques said. "We cannot allow ourselves to have any imperfection here, daughter. We are the faces and owners of our glorious company, and our actions should reflect that all the time."
Out of a corner of her eye, she noticed Winter glare at their father, and Whitley cower in place as if the Jacques's scorn was directed at him, instead.
It was good to know that her siblings were somewhat willing to support her.
A pity her mother wasn't willing to offer similar support, as well. The older woman was more than content with watching all the proceedings with an apathetic expression on her face.
"I will look over it for now, but I expect you to be better next time, understood?" Jacques asked.
She stayed silent under the pressure of her father's words.
"I asked whether you understood, daughter." Her father's voice lowered as he used a more threatening tone.
"Y-Yes, I understand." She let out meekly.
"Good." Jacques nodded. "In that case, I will be the first to leave this table today. The work as a CEO of world's biggest Dust Company never ceases, and I have important matters to attend to."
With the whole table silent, the patriarch of the family slowly, and steadily, left the room.
They all stayed silent for a couple seconds.
In that silence, their mother stood up and left as well, quietly mumbling something about getting a proper drink for herself, while doing so.
"Is everything alright, Weiss?" Winter asked with concerns for her.
Weiss sighed wistfully.
"Yeah, it is."
Despite the situation that had just happened, and how her words sounded, she wasn't actually lying.
She didn't feel too terrible, right now.
If anything, the most prominent emotion currently present in her mind was relief, and maybe a little bit of excitement.
Obviously, hearing her own father talk to her like that, as if she was just another one of his worthless employees, hurt quite a bit, but it was far from being unmanageable.
In the end, the family problems were an everyday reality for her at this point, but getting her family dinner to end early, no matter how painfully for her, was joyous news!
After all, it only meant she could get to playing her video games that much sooner!
(...)
Her chair shook a little, as Weiss excitedly sat down before her computer, ready to play.
There was an entire day of playing video games awaiting her, and she was about to use it to its very fullest. Things like another ruined family dinner, or angry father, weren't going to slow her down!
She quickly stretched her fingers a little, before booting up the game.
If she was about to finally play the competitive mode, then there was no way, she was going to enter the game while not at her absolute best.
Like most of her politics teachers often said, the biggest part of any battle was always the preparation.
While it was pretty obvious that those words were originally used to describe a real combat, or at the very least an important political campaign, there was no rule which claimed they couldn't be applied to video games, as well.
On the contrary, anything that had application in real life was bound to be useful for her gaming career.
A wide grin spread onto her face as she skilfully navigated the Sci-War menus to enter the competitive multiplayer.
It was impossible to tell just how skilled her opponents were going to be, now that they were most likely going to be playing seriously against her, but she was more than confident enough to face any challenge they could throw at her.
She did finish the five mandatory casual games with only two losses, after all.
With a confident click of her mouse, the search for her opponents had begun, and a small timer appeared at the top of the screen.
After playing a couple of casual games, she knew that the average time it took to find another player in this game was usually between two and three minutes. With that in mind, for competitive game mode, she didn't expect to find any opponents for at least a couple minutes more.
There were bound to be more people wanting to play on their own terms, than the ones who wanted to struggle against competitive opponents, right?
To her no small surprise, it didn't take a single minute for the game to find her a competitive match.
"Huh." She whispered to herself as she saw the loading screen before her.
Apparently, there were more people willing to be competitive than she thought.
It sure was interesting to know.
She rapidly shook her head.
It wasn't the time to wonder about her misconceptions about other gamers, she had her competitive match to play, and win!
Her first casual game might have ended in failure, but she wasn't going to let that colour her results here. If there was one thing Schnee's knew how to do, it was winning, and she wasn't going to be an exception to that!
She glanced down at the name of her opponent, and arrogantly scoffed.
Besides, there was absolutely no way she was going to lose to someone called |_|B3RBR()W|\|69. What sort of illiterate faunus plebeian would even choose this thing as their nickname, in the first place?
It looked like a completely random string of signs one could find on their keyboard.
There was simply no way, she could lose this match.
The game loaded to reveal a greyed out map, with its basic layout visible for the players.
A smirk of confidence started to grow on her face as she looked over her arena.
It was very clearly a map that rewarded defensive play, with multiple choke points and mountains to make use of. If both players knew what they were doing, and took advantage of the map, this game could take quite a long time to complete.
In short, it was a perfect map for the Last Kingdom.
She clicked on the logo of her favourite faction, and readied up for the game.
Not a second later, her opponent did the same.
With a swift glance, she quickly checked the faction her opponent had chosen, and let out a quiet chuckle in response.
Her first competitive foe, |_|B3RBR()W|\|69, had decided to play as Grimm.
The expectations she had in her mind about her opponent were laughably low, but, somehow, |_|B3RBR()W|\|69 didn't even come close to meeting them.
Not only the Grimm, as a purely aggressive faction, were beyond terrible at more closed off, therefore more defensive focused, maps, but they were also hard countered by her faction, the Last Kingdom, as well.
She smirked in confidence of her victory.
As long as, she could reach the end game, which on this map shouldn't be too difficult, her victory was practically guaranteed.
The game began, and she, with the confidence of someone who literally couldn't lose, started to play, too.
Although she was certain the game was going to last for quite a bit longer than she would prefer, because of the map, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about what its final results were going to be.
A laugh escaped her.
This game was going to be a joke!
She lost.
She lost quite badly.
An ever annoying Game Over screen was staring right at her from the entirety of the computer screen.
After a short fifteen-minute game, in which she played her absolute best, and used every trick she was aware of to increase her chances at victory, her opponent simply steamrollered through her entire base like it was nothing.
Sufficed to say, the game didn't go well for her.
|_|B3RBR()W|\|69: GG easy
She stared at the parting massage of her opponent with a stupefied expression on her face.
Was this the difference between a new gamer like her, and a real professional?
Would she ever be able to breach this gap?
{The first Competitive Game completed. Finish four more games to receive your initial battle arena ranking.}
The game returned her to the multiplayer menu right after the message disappeared, inviting her to start another competitive game in order to quickly receive her ranking, and enter the leaderboards.
She stared at the computer, not knowing what to do.
Should she simply try again?
It probably wouldn't take her long to finish all five competitive games needed for initial ranking, but she wasn't sure she wanted to put herself through all of that, right now. A single crushing defeat at the hands of a random gamer seemed like just enough for her.
She bit her lip nervously as she looked at the competitive queue.
One more try wouldn't hurt, would it?
The opponents the game was giving her had to be completely random for now, due to her lack of any real ranking, there was no way she was going to get two of such monstrous players in a row.
With some hesitation behind her movement, she queued up another match.
The game found her an opponent within half a minute.
Both she and her opponent chose their factions in a few seconds.
It took less than twelve minutes for her to be absolutely demolished by her opponent's Huntsmen rush on her still singular base.
She didn't have a chance.
Her teeth grounded against each other heavily as she did her best to not destroy her secret gaming setup in a fit of rage as a result of her miserable games.
It was ridiculous!
How was she supposed to play against people like these?!
In the casual game mode she could still manage, and only lose games because of her lack of strategic experience, but it genuinely felt as if she couldn't even play against people on the competitive side of the game.
The speeds at which those people played at were far too ridiculous for her.
It was almost as if they didn't need to interact with the game through the computer at all, and, somehow, used their very thoughts instead.
"It's just so unfair." She let out a quiet grumble.
Maybe she should try to play something else in order to take her mind off the competitive?
Another terrible defeat was the last thing she wanted to experience, right now. There was only so much annoyance and anger a girl could endure before moving onto something else, in the end.
She glanced at her in-game friend list, to see her one online friend come online.
"Huh." She mumbled, they weren't online when she began her foray into the competitive game mode.
They must've joined during one of her games.
Good, she needed someone to distract her from her terrible losses, and Arch06Knight1 should be the perfect person to do that. A close match against her friend was quite an entertaining way to spend her time, all the same.
She opened the chat window, and moved her fingers towards the keyboard.
Now, she only needed to find a way to start a conversation, ask for a friendly casual match, and not embarrass herself in front of her friend by talking about her horrible losses at the hands of the competitive players.
It wasn't going to be difficult.
It was going to be easy.
She started writing her greetings in the chat, exactly like the teachers had always taught her to do, before having to stop herself from sending it to her friend just as she was about to do it.
Although she wasn't sure why, it didn't feel right to send such a message to her friend, for some reason.
There was something off about it.
Was it perhaps too formal?
She hummed as she contemplated how to reword her message into something more digestible for a common person, before a loud ping of receiving massage shook her out of her thoughts.
Arch06Knight1: yo, your online!
In surprise at the sudden contact, she accidentally swung her arm down, and pressed enter, sending the pre-made unedited massage to her friend.
SnowReh01: Good Afternoon, Arch06Knight1, I send you this message as a greeting, and an invitation to spend time together. I hope you will reply soon, so that we can waste no more time, and get into playing the game.
"Oh no!" She shouted in panic, as she desperately and fruitlessly tried to delete the unsuitable massage from the chat.
Arch06Knight1: what?
SnowReh01: Nothing!
SnowReh01: It's not important!
She huffed as her face turned slightly red at her mistake.
Well, at the very least, it weren't her losses that brought her embarrassment.
It had to count for something, right?
Arch06Knight1: ok
Arch06Knight1: wanna play?
She let out a breath of relief.
Thankfully, her friend didn't think her too weird for that longer message earlier. She wasn't sure what she would do, if they decided to actually acknowledge that little mistake she did there.
All she knew was that, if they did, it would have been even more embarrassing than it already was.
After shaking her head a little, to stop thinking about that incredibly humiliating mistake of hers and quickly gather her thoughts together, she effortlessly went back to typing her response.
SnowReh01: Sure, as long as we're not playing competitive.
Hopefully, they weren't going ask why she didn't want to play the competitive.
Arch06Knight1: i see trying to entr the lederboards ddin't end so well
She grumbled.
At the very least, it was not a question, she supposed.
SnowReh01: It didn't.
Arch06Knight1: how about we play som custm games thn?
A thoughtful hum left her mouth as she read her friend's message.
The custom game modes weren't something she had tried, yet. In fact, she didn't even enter the menu for them, to check what sort of games one could play there, so it would be a learning experience for her.
SnowReh01: Okay, do you know any interesting custom games, in that case.
It was an important question.
Although, she might not have the greatest knowledge about the custom games, she knew that there had to be hundreds of them. With community being responsible for creating them, it was impossible for there to not be so many.
The real problem was with finding good ones.
Arch06Knight1: have you tryed any TDs?
SnowReh01: TDs?
Arch06Knight1: tower defence
She narrowed her eyes at her friend's message.
Tower Defense.
It was clearly a game mode designed around defensive play, though whether it was about defending a tower, or using towers for defending one's base, she couldn't quite tell from the name on its own. It could very well be about both of her ideas, for all she knew.
A smile appeared on her face, as she nodded her head.
Good, she did love to play defensively, anyway.
This game mode was perfect for her.
SnowReh01: No, I haven't played them, yet.
SnowReh01: However, they do sound interesting.
Arch06Knight1: yeh theyre fun
Arch06Knight1: let me send u a invite
No more than half a minute later, she received another message on her chatroom, inviting her to the game with her friend.
"That was quick" She remarked as she clicked on the invitation.
Sure, it might not have been as fast as entering a single player game, but compared to the casual search, or competitive too for that matter, it felt like an instant. Depending on whether she knew what type of mission she wanted to play beforehand or not, it could be even faster than entering a single player game, too.
Her friend must have had this custom map already in his favourites beforehand.
Well, if she wanted a good recommendation of this game more, then, she supposed, knowing that her friend liked it enough to have it in listed their favourites should be quite enough.
At minimum, it proved the map was decently replayable.
It took a bit longer for the game to load, than it would have had it been any other game mode, and the moment it did she noticed a completely new map with two bases, and multiple paths leading towards them.
The map was obviously completely man made, because its design was way too specific and unbalanced for it to have been used in a normal play.
Arch06Knight1: here we are
Arch06Knight1: yuo get the left base
Arch06Knight1: i got right
Arch06Knight1: monstrs will strt spawnnign in coupl minutes
Arch06Knight1: lets put some defnses
She nodded her head.
It looked like the rules were rather simple, though she suspected that the further she got into the game the more complicated it would be, or if not, then it would certainly become far more difficult, instead.
SnowReh01: Alright.
After a short moment, to carefully read all the units available to her and compare their strengths, she started to place down her defences.
Unlike in the usual games, she couldn't place her units and building wherever she pleased, the paths leading to their bases as well as the area just around them were off-limits when it came to building stuff.
The units and buildings, she had access to, were also changed from how they would act in a normal game.
Not only did she have all the available buildings directly on her hot-bar, she didn't even have to use her worker units to build them, either. There actually weren't any worker units to her disposal, in the first place.
Whatever building or unit she wanted to build would simply appear on the map the moment she clicked on the location she wanted them at.
Arch06Knight1: i reccomnd heavy mechs
She couldn't help but raise her eyebrows a little in confusion at her partner's recommendation.
SnowReh01: Why?
While she could easily see the advantages of the heavy mechas in the normal game, especially during the slow end games, with their cost being as high as it was, she couldn't see a reason to buy any of them so early into this game.
There was a set amount of resources she could use, and, unlike in the typical game, it was impossible to create a strong enough economy here to support those types of units.
With her remaining resources, she would have been able to place two such mechas, at most. Besides, for the same amount of money, she could also buy almost six elite snipers for her defence.
The two strong mechas were simply not worth it, in her mind.
Arch06Knight1: their flacks slw grimm
Arch06Knight1: the only unit capble of that at range
Arch06Knight1: they are worth it
A quiet hum left her, as she pondered over her friend's arguments.
SnowReh01: Alright, I will place one of them.
If what they said was true, then she supposed she could see the reason why those mechas might be useful, as long as she took the abnormal map into the account as well, that was.
She clicked on the icon of the heavy mecha, and placed it between two different paths coming towards them.
Considering the reason for their usefulness was the slowing ability, a position like this, where the mechas could target most of the enemies coming towards them, should be the most optimal for defensive purposes.
Arch06Knight1: good spot!
A subtle smile appeared on her face in response to the praise.
After a saddening day, like the one she just had, any type of praise was more than welcome to improve her mood.
With the smile never leaving her face, she put down her final defences, and only mere seconds after she had done so, the first wave of grimm started to spawn at the end of the map.
Since it was only the first wave, all the enemies were basic Beowolves, and all of them were approaching from the same path, too.
A couple of their units, mostly from the ones her friend had placed, targeted the grimm and opened fire.
As their units' bullets collided, and the game calculated the damage, one grimm after another began falling down, dying in droves, while barely advancing towards them.
Considering their robust defences, and how easily the enemies were being killed, it didn't come as the slightest surprise to her, when all the upcoming grimm died before even reaching the halfway point.
Arch06Knight1: 1 wave done
Arch06Knight1: next one on your side
Arch06Knight1: be cereful
She smirked at the warning.
With the defences she put down, there was no need for her to be careful. The grimm weren't going to move further than a couple small steps before getting completely obliterated by them.
The second wave started in the same way as the first, and after another round of absolute slaughter, it ended in a similarly to the first one, as well.
SnowReh01: Easy.
She could feel her confidence coming back to her as she had easily torn through the wave.
It was cathartic.
Arch06Knight1: first few waves are easy
Arch06Knight1: challange rises past round ten
There was no doubt in her mind that it did, and she couldn't wait to get to that point.
SnowReh01: Good, it wouldn't be fun without a challenge.
A catharsis from overcoming a difficult challenge was going to be so much greater when compared to the one she felt just now. As all of her teacher always told her, the more difficult something was, the more worth it was to accomplish.
Now that she thought about it, she wondered what constituted for winning this game.
SnowReh01: Hey, Arch06Knigh1, what's the final round?
One couldn't feel the full sense of accomplishment if they didn't actually finish their challenge completely, right?
Arch06Knight1: doesnt have one
Arch06Knight1: its infinite
She blinked a couple times at the answer, it wasn't what she was expecting.
Well, if they couldn't actually win this game, then she would have to simply get by with just beating her friend's record. It would count as some sort of victory for her, after all, wouldn't it?
Before she could write her friend a question, she noticed another few messages appear on the chat.
Arch06Knight1: also call me arch or knight
Arch06Knight1: the full nickname is too long
She smiled.
SnowReh01: Will do, Knight.
SnowReh01: As long as you simply call me Snow in return.
Arch06Knight1: ok
By the time they reached that point in their written conversation, the third wave of grimm had already spawned, making basic Beowolves approach them from multiple directions this time.
In spite of the slight increase in the wave's intensity, however, it still was repelled by their unchanged defences.
As the final grimm of the wave died, her attention returned to the chat.
There was still an important question to ask about this game.
SnowReh01: By the way, Knight, what's your record on this map?
Knight went quiet for a few seconds, with no units being bought by them and no massages appearing in the chat. The other player no doubt quickly tried to either find their record noted somewhere, or remember it from their head.
Arch06Knight1: i think its somehere around 19
Arch06Knight1: not sure tho
She nodded her head in satisfaction at the answer.
SnowReh01: You'll be getting to at least wave 25, today.
SnowReh01: We are aiming for the top.
Her attention turned to the game as she began to strategise about her defences. If there was one thing she was good at in this game, it was a defensive play, and she was going to give her all, to make the defences for this game the best they could possibly be.
Arch06Knight1: OK
Arch06Knight1: i trust you snow!
After that message, their activity in the chat slowed down a little, as both of them focused much more on succeeding in their self-imposed task of getting to the twenty-fifth wave of grimm.
As they put down more and more defences along the paths, a wide smile didn't leave Weiss's face for a single moment.
She couldn't wait to break that record.
(...)
In the end, it took them about forty minutes to reach the 24th wave, on which they lost to an army of flying Nevermores.
Apparently, their heavy reliance on the heavy mechas, and their slowing ability, during the game didn't lend itself well, when faced with enemies immune to being slow down.
Who would have thought?
Despite that, however, Weiss couldn't say that she was dissatisfied with the results of the game. Getting to such a high round with her friend was so much more gratifying than repeatedly losing in the competitive mode, instead.
She wasn't giving up on getting into the leaderboards, though!
It was just a temporary break to recover her wits, and think of the better strategies.
The moment she was back at her best, she was going to conquer the competitive, for sure!
A small sigh left her as she looked at the list of all the custom maps, she had before her on the screen. There were still so many game modes left to experience, and beat with her friend, that she couldn't wait for their next gaming session.
It was a pity Knight had to leave right after their game had ended, but she wouldn't be the one to stop them.
The biggest problem it left for her was making her want to play something new, but not having anyone to show her any interesting games.
That was certainly annoying.
She groaned a little as she looked at the list of maps before her.
While it was beyond impressive to see just how many different games could be made using just the Sci-War as a base, their sheer amount and lack of decent filters was making her head dizzy.
It wasn't like she could easily search up some recommendations, either.
Sci-War might have been a popular RTS classic, but it wasn't so popular it would have dedicated reviews for a custom maps made for it, and even if it had at some point, the people responsible for these would have moved on to different strategy games by now.
She huffed lightly as she moved to close the custom games' menu, staring at all those maps was only going to make her head hurt.
While doing so, she accidentally clicked on the wrong button and exited the entire game, revealing her nearly barren desktop with only three icons on it.
The only programs she had on her computer, were the internet browser, the Sci-War launcher, and a couple necessary apps that came together with the device. If any other gamer were to see that, they wouldn't have believed her about her passion for video games.
A thoughtful hum escaped her as she looked at the scarce icons on her computer screen.
The tower defence game mode, Knight had shown her, was very different from the standard Sci-War games, and she enjoyed it very much, nonetheless.
It wouldn't have been a stretch to say that it was almost an entirely different game.
She smiled as a thought entered her mind.
Maybe it was finally the time to try some other video games?
And cut!
I don't really have anything to say about this chapter, so that's it for now, I guess.
See ya!